ill 


JAME' 


;C 


LIBRARY 

UN.  ..     ...  ,    OF 

CALIFORNIA 
SANTA  CRUZ 


THE 
CREAM 
OF  THE 

JEST 


BOOKS    BY    MR.    CABELL 

NOVELS: 

THE  CREAM  OF  THE  JEST 

THE  SOUL  OF  ME  LI  CENT 

THE  RIVET  IN  GRANDFATHER'S  NECK 

THE  CORDS  OF  VANITY 

THE  EAGLE'S  SHADOW 

TALES: 

THE  CERTAIN  HOUR 

CHIVALRY 

THE  LINE  OF  LOVE 

GALLANTRY 

VERSES: 

FROM  THE  HIDDEN  WAY 

GENEALOGIES: 

BRANCH  OF  ABINGDON 

BRANCHIANA 

THE  MAJORS  AND   THEIR  MARRIAGES 


THE 
CREAM 
OF  THE 

JEST 


A  Comedy  of  Evasions 


BY 


JAMES  BRANCH  CABELL 

?     I" 


"  Le  pays  em  je  voulais  oiler,  tu  m'y  as  menS 
en  songe,  cette  nuit,  et  tu  etais  beUe  .  .  . 
ah!  que  tu  etais  belle!  .  .  .  Mais,  comme 
je  n'ai  aime  que  ton  ombre,  tu  me  dispen- 
seras,  chere  tete,  de  remercier  ta  realite." 


NEW  YORK 

ROBERT  M.  McBRIDE  &  COMPANY 
1917 


Copyright,  1917,  by 
ROBERT  M.  MCBRIDE  &  Co. 


Published  September,  1917 


C7 


TO 
LOUISA  NELSON 

1  At  me  ab  amort  tuo  diducet 
nulla  senectus." 


Contents 


BOOK  FIRST 

I     INTRODUCES  THE  AGELESS  WOMAN      .     .       3 
II    WHEREIN    A    CLERK    APPRAISES    A    FAIR 

COUNTRY n 

III  OF  THE  DOUBLE-DEALER'S  TRAFFIC  WITH 

A  KNAVE 15 

IV  How  THE  DOUBLE-DEALER  WAS  OF  Two 

MINDS 19 

V    TREATS   OF   MAUGIS   D'AIGREMONT'S   POT- 
TAGE        23 

VI     JOURNEYS    END:    WITH    THE    CUSTOMARY 

UNMASKING 26 

BOOK  SECOND 

I     OF  A  TRIFLE  FOUND  IN  TWILIGHT     .      .     37 
II     BEYOND  USE  AND  WONT  FARES  THE  ROAD 

TO  STORISENDE 40 

III  OF  IDLE  SPECULATIONS  IN  A  LIBRARY  .     .     49 

IV  How  THERE  WAS  A  LIGHT  IN  THE  FOG  .     55 
V    OF  PUBLISHING:  WITH  AN  UNLIKELY  AP- 
PENDIX     61 

VI     SUGGESTING  THEMES  OF   UNIVERSAL  AP- 
PEAL        72 

ix 


CONTENTS 


VII     PECULIAR  CONDUCT  OF  A  PERSONAGE  .     .     80 
VIII     OF  VAIN   REGRET  AND  WONDER  IN  THE 

DARK 93 

BOOK  THIRD 
I    THEY  COME  TO  A  HIGH  PLACE  .      .     .     .103 

II       OF  THE  SlGIL  AND  ONE  USE  OF  IT    .        .        .     IO7 

III  TREATS  OF  A  PRELATE  AND,  IN  PART,  OF 

PIGEONS no 

IV  LOCAL  LAWS  OF  NEPHELOCOCCYGIA       .     .118 
V    OF  DIVERS  FLESHLY  RIDDLES   .      .     .      .125 

VI     IN  PURSUIT  OF  A  WHISPER     .      .     .     .130 
VII     OF  TRUISMS:  TREATED  REASONABLY  .     .136 

BOOK  FOURTH 

I     ECONOMIC  CONSIDERATIONS  OF  PIETY  .     .143 
II     DEALS  WITH  PEN  SCRATCHES   .      .     .     .150 

III  BY-PRODUCTS  OF  RATIONAL  ENDEAVOR     .   156 

IV  "EPPER  Si  MUOVE" 163 

V    EVOLUTION  OF  A  VESTRYMAN   .      .     .     .172 

BOOK  FIFTH 

I     OF  POETIC  LOVE:  TREATED  WITH  POETIC 

INEFFICIENCY 195 

II    CROSS-PURPOSES  IN  SPACIOUS  TIMES  .     .210 

III  HORVENDILE  TO   ElTARRE :   AT  WHITEHALL   217 

IV  HORVENDILE    TO    ETTARRE:    AT    VAUX-LE- 

VlCOMTE  222 


CONTENTS 


V       HORVENDILE     TO     ElTARRE :     IN     THE     CON- 

CIERGERIE  .     v 226 

VI     OF  ONE  ENIGMA  THAT  THREATENED  TO 

PROVE  ALLEGORICAL 232 

VII    TREATS  OF  WITCHES,  MIXED  DRINKS,  AND 

THE  WEATHER 239 

BOOK  SIXTH 

I     SUNDRY  DISCLOSURES  OF  THE  PRESS   .     .  249 
II     CONSIDERATIONS  TOWARD  SUNSET    .     .     .  254 

III  ONE  WAY  OF  ELUSION 258 

IV  PAST  STORISENDE  FARES  THE  ROAD  OF  USE 

AND  WONT 262 

V    WHICH  MR.  FLAHERTY  DOES  NOT  QUITE 

EXPLAIN 269 


XI 


Preface 


MUCH  has  been  written  critically  about 
Felix  Kennaston  since  the  disappearance 
of  his  singular  personality  from  the 
field  of  contemporary  writers;  and  Mr.  Froser's 
Biography  contains  all  it  is  necessary  to  know  as 
to  the  facts  of  Kennaston's  life.  Yet  most  readers 
of  the  Biography,  I  think,  must  have  felt  that  the 
great  change  in  Kennaston  no  long  while  after  he 
"  came  to  forty  year  " — this  sudden,  almost  un- 
paralleled, conversion  of  a  talent  for  tolerable 
verse  into  the  full-fledged  genius  of  Men  Who 
Loved  Alison  —  stays,  after  all,  unexplained.  .  .  . 

Hereinafter  you  have  Kennaston's  own  explan- 
ation. I  do  not  know  but  that  in  hunting  down 
one  enigma  it  raises  a  bevy;  but  it,  at  worst,  tells 
from  his  standpoint  honestly  how  this  change 
came  about. 

You  are  to  remember  that  the  tale  is  pieced  to- 
gether, in  part  from  social  knowledge  of  the  man, 
and  in  part  from  the  notes  I  made  as  to  what  Felix 

xiii 


PREFACE 


Kennaston  in  person  told  me,  bit  by  bit,  a  year  or 
two  after  events  the  tale  commemorates.  I  had 
known  the  Kennastons  for  some  while,  with  that 
continual  shallow  intimacy  into  which  chance 
forces  most  country  people  with  their  near  neigh- 
bors, before  Kennaston  ever  spoke  of  —  as  he 
called  the  thing  —  the  sigil.  And,  even  then,  it 
was  as  if  with  negligence  he  spoke,  telling  of  what 
happened  —  or  had  appeared  to  happen  —  and 
answering  my  questions,  with  simply  dumbfound- 
ing personal  unconcern.  It  all  seemed  indescrib- 
ably indecent:  and  I  marveled  no  little,  I  can  re- 
member, as  I  took  my  notes.  .  .  . 

Now  I  can  understand  it  was  just  that  his  stand- 
ard of  values  was  no  longer  ours  nor  really  hu- 
man. You  see  —  it  hardly  matters  through  how 
dependable  an  agency  —  Kennaston  no  longer 
thought  of  himself  as  a  man  of  flesh-and-blood 
moving  about  a  world  of  his  compeers.  Or,  at 
least,  that  especial  aspect  of  his  existence  was  to 
him  no  longer  a  phase  of  any  particular  im- 
portance. 

But  to  tell  of  his  thoughts,  is  to  anticipate. 
Hereinafter  you  have  them  full  measure  and,  such 
xiv 


PREFACE 


as  it  is,  his  story.  You  must  permit  that  I  begin 
it  in  my  own  way,  with  what  may  to  you  at  first 
seem  dream-stuff.  For  I  commence  at  Storisende, 
in  the  world's  youth,  when  the  fourth  Count  Em- 
merick  reigned  in  Poictesme,  having  not  yet  blun- 
dered into  the  disfavor  of  his  papal  cousin  Adrian 
VII.  .  .  .  With  such  roundabout  gambits  alone 
can  some  of  us  approach  —  as  one  fancy  begets 
another,  if  you  will  —  to  proud  assurance  that  life 
is  not  a  blind  and  aimless  business ;  not  all  a  hope- 
less waste  and  confusion;  and  that  we  ourselves 
may  (by-and-by)  be  strong  and  excellent  and  wise. 
Such,  in  any  event,  is  the  road  that  Kennaston 
took,  and  such  the  goal  to  which  he  was  conducted. 
So,  with  that  goal  in  view,  I  also  begin  where  he 
began,  and  follow  whither  the  dream  led  him. 
Meanwhile,  I  can  but  entreat  you  to  remember  it 
is  only  by  preserving  faith  in  human  dreams  that 
we  may,  after  all,  perhaps  some  day  make  them 
come  true. 

RICHARD  FENTNOR  HARROWBY. 

Montevideo 
14  April  1917. 

xv 


Book  First 


"Give  place,  fair  ladies,  and  begone, 

Ere  pride  hath  had  a  fall! 
For  here  at  hand  approacheth  one 
Whose  grace  doth  stain  you  all. 

"Ettarre  is  well  compared 
Unto  the  Phoenix  kind, 
Whose  like  was  never  seen  or  heard, 
That  any  man  can  find." 


Introduces  the  Ageless 
Woman 


THE  tale  tells  how  Count  Emmerick 
planned  a  notable  marriage-feast  for 
his  sister  La  Beale  Ettarre  and  Sir 
Guiron  des  Rocques.  The  tale  relates  that,  in 
honor  of  this  wedding,  came  from  Nacumera,  far 
oversea,  Count  Emmerick's  elder  sister  Dame 
Melicent  and  her  husband  the  Comte  de  la  Foret, 
with  an  outlandish  retinue  of  pagan  slaves  that 
caused  great  wonder.  All  Poictesme  took  holi- 
day. The  tale  narrates  how  from  Naimes  to 
Lisuarte,  and  in  the  wild  hill-country  back  of 
Perdigon,  knights  made  ready  for  the  tournament, 
traveling  toward  Storisende  in  gay  silken  gar- 
ments such  as  were  suited  to  these  new  times  of 
peace.  The  highways  in  those  parts  shone  with 
warriors,  riding  in  companies  of  six  or  eight,  wear- 
ing mantles  worked  in  gold,  and  mounted  upon 
valuable  horses  that  glittered  with  new  bits  and 

3 


THE      CREAM     OF     THE      JEST 

housings.  And  the  tale  tells,  also,  how  they  came 
with  horns  sounding  before  them. 

Ettarre  watched  from  the  turrets  of  Storisende, 
pensively.  Yet  she  was  happy  in  these  days. 
"  Indeed,  there  is  now  very  little  left  this  side  of 
heaven  for  you  to  desire,  madame,"  said  Horven- 
dile  the  clerk,  who  stood  beside  her  at  his  serv- 
ice. 

"  No,  there  is  nothing  now  which 'troubles  me, 
Horvendile,  save  the  thought  of  Maugis  d'Aigre- 
mont  I  cannot  ever  be  sure  of  happiness  so 
long  as  that  man  lives." 

"  So,  so !  "  says  Horvendile  — "  ah,  yes,  a  mas- 
ter-villain, that!  He  is  foiled  for  the  present, 
and  in  hiding,  nobody  knows  where;  but  I,  too, 
would  not  wonder  should  he  be  contriving  some 
new  knavery.  Say  what  you  may,  madame,  I  can- 
not but  commend  his  persistency,  however  base  be 
his  motives;  and  in  the  forest  of  Bovion,  where  I 
rescued  you  from  his  clutches,  the  miscreant  spoke 
with  a  hellish  gusto  that  I  could  have  found  it  in 
my  heart  to  admire." 

Ettarre  had  never  any  liking  for  this  half-scof- 
fing kind  of  talk,  to  which  the  clerk  was  deplorably 
4 


INTRODUCES  THE  AGELESS  WOMAN 

prone.  "  You  speak  very  strangely  at  times, 
Horvendile.  Wickedness  cannot  ever  be  admir- 
able; and  to  praise  it,  even  in  jest,  cannot  but  be 
displeasing  to  the  Author  of  us  all." 

"  Eh,  madame,  I  am  not  so  sure  of  that.  Cer- 
tainly, the  Author  of  those  folk  who  have  figured 
thus  far  in  your  history  has  not  devoted  His  tal- 
ents to  creating  perfect  people." 

She  wondered  at  him,  and  showed  as  much  in 
the  big  blue  eyes  which  had  troubled  so  many 
men's  sleep.  "  Since  time  began,  there  has  lived 
no  nobler  person  or  more  constant  lover  than  my 
lord  Guiron." 

"  Oh,  yes,  Sir  Guiron,  I  grant  you,  is  very 
nearly  immaculate,"  said  Horvendile;  and  he 
yawned. 

"  My  friend,  you  have  always  served  him  faith- 
fully. We  two  cannot  ever  forget  how  much  we 
have  owed  in  the  past  to  your  quick  wits  and 
shrewd  devices.  Yet  now  your  manner  troubles 


me." 


Dame  Ettarre  spoke  the  truth,  for,  knowing 
the  man  to  be  unhappy  —  and  suspecting  the  rea- 
son of  his  unhappiness,  too  —  she  would  have 

5 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

comforted  him ;  but  Horvendile  was  not  in  a  con- 
fiding mood.  Whimsically  he  says: 

"  Rather,  it  is  I  who  am  troubled,  madame. 
For  envy  possesses  me,  and  a  faint  teasing  weari- 
ness also  possesses  me,  because  I  am  not  as  Sir 
Guiron,  and  never  can  be.  Look  you,  they  pre- 
pare your  wedding-feast  now,  your  former  sor- 
rows are  stingless;  and  to  me,  who  have  served 
you  through  hard  seasons  of  adversity,  it  is  as  if 
I  had  been  reading  some  romance,  and  had  come 
now  to  the  last  page.  Already  you  two  grow 
shadowy;  and  already  I  incline  to  rank  Sir  Guiron 
and  you,  madame,  with  Arnaud  and  Fregonde, 
with  Palmerin  and  Polinarda,  with  Gui  and  Flori- 
pas  —  with  that  fair  throng  of  noted  lovers  whose 
innocuous  mishaps  we  follow  with  pleasant  agita- 
tion, and  whom  we  dismiss  to  eternal  happiness, 
with  smiling  incredulity,  as  we  turn  back  to  a 
workaday  world.  For  it  is  necessary  now  that  I 
return  to  my  own  country,  and  there  I  shall  not 
ever  see  you  any  more." 

Ettarre,  in  common  with  the  countryside,  knew 
the  man  hopelessly  loved  her;  and  she  pitied  him 
to-day  beyond  wording.  Happiness  is  a  famed 
6 


INTRODUCES  THE  AGELESS  WOMAN 

breeder  of  magnanimity.  "  My  poor  friend,  we 
must  get  you  a  wife.  Are  there  no  women  in 
your  country?  " 

"  Ah,  but  there  is  never  any  woman  in  one's 
own  country  whom  one  can  love,  madame,"  re- 
plies Horvendile  shrewdly.  "  For  love,  I  take  it, 
must  look  toward  something  not  quite  accessible, 
something  not  quite  understood.  Now,  I  have 
been  so  unfortunate  as  to  find  the  women  of  my 
country  lacking  in  reticence.  I  know  their  opin- 
ions concerning  everything  —  touching  God  and 
God's  private  intentions,  and  touching  me,  and 
the  people  across  the  road  —  and  how  these 
women's  clothes  are  adjusted,  and  what  they  eat 
for  breakfast,  and  what  men  have  kissed  them: 
there  is  no  room  for  illusion  anywhere.  Nay, 
more:  I  am  familiar  with  the  mothers  of  these 
women,  and  in  them  I  see  quite  plainly  what  these 
women  will  be  some  twenty  years  from  this  morn- 
ing; there  is  not  even  room  for  hope.  Ah,  no, 
madame ;  the  women  of  my  country  are  the  pleas- 
antest  of  comrades,  and  the  helpfullest  of  wives : 
but  I  cannot  conceal  it  from  myself  that,  after 
all,  they  are  only  human  beings;  and  therefore  it 

7 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

has  never  been  possible  for  me  to  love  any  one  of 
them." 

"  And  am  I  not,  then,  a  human  being,  poor 
Horvendile?" 

There  was  a  tinge  of  mischief  in  the  query;  but 
beauty  very  often  makes  for  lightheadedness,  both 
in  her  that  has  and  in  him  that  views  it;  nor  be- 
tween Ind  and  Thule  was  there  any  lovelier  maid 
than  Ettarre.  Smiling  she  awaited  his  answer; 
the  sunlight  glorified  each  delicate  clarity  of  color 
in  her  fair  face,  and  upon  her  breast  gleamed  the 
broken  sigil  of  Scoteia,  that  famed  talisman  which 
never  left  her  person.  "  And  am  I  not,  then,  a 
human  being?"  says  she. 

Gravely  Horvendile  answered:  "Not  in  my 
eyes,  madame.  For  you  embody  all  that  I  was 
ever  able  to  conceive  of  beauty  and  fearlessness 
and  strange  purity.  Therefore  it  is  evident  I  do 
not  see  in  you  merely  Count  Emmerick's  third 
sister,  but,  instead,  that  ageless  lovable  and  loving 
woman  long  worshiped  and  sought  everywhere 
in  vain  by  all  poets." 

Horvendile  meditated  for  a  while.  "  Assur- 
edly, it  was  you  of  whom  blind  Homer  dreamed, 
8 


INTRODUCES    THE    AGELESS    WOMAN 

comforting  endless  night  with  visions  of  your 
beauty,  as  you  sat  in  a  bright  fragrant  vaulted 
chamber  weaving  at  a  mighty  loom,  and  em- 
broidering on  tapestry  the  battles  men  were  wag- 
ing about  Troy  because  of  your  beauty;  and  very 
certainly  it  was  to  you  that  Hermes  came  over 
fields  of  violets  and  parsley,  where  you  sang  magic 
rhymes,  sheltered  by  an  island  cavern,  in  which 
cedar  and  citron-wood  were  burning  —  and,  call- 
ing you  Calypso,  bade  you  release  Odysseus  from 
the  spell  of  your  beauty.  Sophocles,  too,  saw  you 
bearing  an  ewer  of  bronze,  and  treading  gingerly 
among  gashed  lamentable  corpses,  lest  your  loved 
dead  be  dishonored;  and  Sophocles  called  you 
Antigone,  praising  your  valor  and  your  beauty. 
And  when  men  named  you  Bombyca,  Theocritus 
also  sang  of  your  grave  drowsy  voice  and  your 
feet  carven  of  ivory,  and  of  your  tender  heart  and 
all  your  honey-pale  sweet  beauty." 

"  I  do  not  remember  any  of  these  troubadours 
you  speak  of,  my  poor  Horvendile ;  but  I  am  very 
certain  that  if  they  were  poets  they,  also,  must 
in  their  time  have  talked  a  great  deal  of  non- 


sense." 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

"  And  as  Mark's  Queen/'  says  Horvendile,  in- 
tent on  his  conceit,  "  you  strayed  with  Tristran  in 
the  sunlit  glades  of  Morois,  that  high  forest, 
where  many  birds  sang  full-throated  in  the  new 
light  of  spring;  as  Medeia  you  fled  from  Colchis; 
and  as  Esclairmonde  you  delivered  Huon  from 
the  sardonic  close  wiles  of  heathenry,  which  to 
you  seemed  childish.  All  poets  have  had  these 
fitful  glimpses  of  you,  Ettarre,  and  of  that  per- 
fect beauty  which  is  full  of  troubling  reticences, 
and  so,  is  somehow  touched  with  something  sin- 
ister. Now  all  these  things  I  likewise  see  in  you, 
Ettarre;  and  therefore,  for  my  own  sanity's  sake, 
I  dare  not  concede  that  you  are  a  human  being." 

The  clerk  was  very  much  in  earnest.  Ettarre 
granted  that,  insane  as  his  talk  seemed  to  her;  and 
the  patient  yearning  in  his  eyes  was  not  displeas- 
ing to  Ettarre.  Her  hand  touched  his  cheek, 
quickly  and  lightly,  like  the  brush  of  a  bird's  wing. 

"  My  poor  Horvendile,  you  are  in  love  with 
fantasies.  There  was  never  any  lady  such  as  you 
dream  of."  Then  she  left  him. 

But  Horvendile  remained  at  the  parapet,  peer- 
ing out  over  broad  rolling  uplands. 
10 


Wherein  a  Clerk  Appraises 
a  Fair  Country 


HORVENDILE   peered   out   over   broad 
rolling  uplands.  .  .  .  He  viewed  a  no- 
ble country,  good  to  live  in,  rich  with 
grain  and  metal,  embowered  with  tall  forests,  and 
watered  by  pleasant   streams.     Walled  cities  it 
had,   and  castles  crowned  its  eminencies.     Very- 
far  beneath  Horvendile  the  leaded  roofs  of  these 
fortresses    glittered    in    sunlight,    for    Storisende 
guards  the  loftiest  part  of  the  province. 

And  the  people  of  this  land  —  from  its  lords 
of  the  high,  the  low,  and  the  middle  justice,  to 
the  sturdy  whining  beggars  at  its  cathedral  doors 
—  were  not  all  unworthy  of  this  fair  realm.  Un- 
doubtedly, it  was  a  land,  as  Horvendile  whimsic- 
ally reflected,  wherein  human  nature  kept  its  first 
dignity  and  strength;  and  wherein  human  passions 
were  never  in  a  poor  way  to  find  expression  with 
adequate  speech  and  action. 

II 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

Now,  from  the  field  below,  a  lark  rose  singing 
joyously.  Straight  into  the  air  it  rose,  and  was 
lost  in  the  sun's  growing  brilliance;  but  you  could 
hear  its  singing;  and  then,  as  suddenly,  the  bird 
dropped  to  earth.  No  poet  could  resist  em- 
broidery on  such  a  text. 

Began  Horvendile  straightway :  "  Quan  vey 
la  laudeta  mover  " —  or  in  other  wording: 

;<  When  I  behold  the  skylark  move  in  perfect 
joy  toward  its  love  the  sun,  and,  growing  drunk 
with  joy,  forget  the  use  of  wings,  so  that  it  top- 
ples from  the  height  of  heaven,  I  envy  the  bird's 
fate.  I,  too,  would  taste  that  ruinous  mad  mo- 
ment of  communion,  there  in  heaven,  and  my  heart 
dissolves  in  longing. 

"  Ailas !  how  little  do  I  know  of  love !  —  I,  who 
was  once  deluded  by  the  conceit  that  I  was  all- 
wise  in  love.  For  I  am  unable  to  put  aside  desire 
for  a  woman  whom  I  must  always  love  in  vain. 
She  has  bereft  me  of  hope.  She  has  robbed  me 
of  my  heart,  of  herself,  and  of  all  joy  in  the 
world,  and  she  has  left  me  nothing  save  dreams 
and  regrets. 

"  Never  have  I  been  able  to  recover  my  full 
12 


A  CLERK  APPRAISES  A  COUNTRY 

senses  since  that  moment  when  she  first  permitted 
me  to  see  myself  mirrored  in  her  bright  eyes. 
Hey,  fatal  mirrors !  which  flattered  me  too  much ! 
for  I  have  sighed  ever  since  I  beheld  my  image  in 
you.  I  have  lost  myself  in  you,  like  Narcissus  in 
his  fountain." 

Thus  he  lamented,  standing  alone  among  the 
turrets  of  Storisende.  Now  a  troop  of  jongleurs 
was  approaching  the  castle  —  gay  dolls,  jerked 
by  invisible  wires,  the  vagabonds  seemed  to  be, 
from  this  height. 

"  More  merry-makers  for  the  marriage-feast. 
We  must  spare  no  appropriate  ceremony.  And 
yonder  Count  Emmerick  is  ordering  the  major- 
domo  to  prepare  peacocks  stuffed  with  beccaficoes, 
and  a  pastry  builded  like  a  palace.  Hah,  my 
beautiful  fantastic  little  people,  that  I  love  and 
play  with,  and  dispose  of  just  as  I  please,  it  is 
time  your  master  shift  another  puppet." 

So  Horvendile  descended,  still  poetizing: 
"  Pus  ab  mi  dons  no  m  pot  valer  " —  or  in  other 
wording : 

"  Since  nothing  will  avail  to  move  my  lady  — 
not  prayers  or  righteous  claims  or  mercy  —  and 

13 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

she  desires  my  homage  now  no  longer,  I  shall  have 
nothing  more  to  say  of  love.  I  must  renounce 
love,  and  abjure  it  utterly.  I  must  regard  her 
whom  I  love  as  one  no  longer  living.  I  must,  in 
fine,  do  that  which  I  prepare  to  do ;  and  afterward 
I  must  depart  into  eternal  exile." 


Of  the  Double- Dealer's 
Traffic  With  a  Knave 


HORVENDILE  left  the  fortress,  and  came 
presently      to      Maugis      d'Aigremont. 
Horvendile  got  speech  with  this  brigand 
where  he  waited  encamped  in  the  hill-country  of 
Perdigon,  loth  to  leave  Storisende  since  it  held 
Ettarre  whom  he  so  much  desired,  but  with  too 
few  adherents  to  venture  an  attack. 

Maugis  sprawled  listless  in  his  chair,  wrapped 
in  a  mantle  of  soiled  and  faded  green  stuff,  as 
though  he  were  cold.  In  his  hand  was  a  naked 
sword,  with  which  moodily  he  was  prodding  the 
torn  papers  scattered  about  him.  He  did  not 
move  at  all,  but  his  somber  eyes  lifted. 

'What  do  you  plan  now,  Horvendile?" 

*  Treachery,  messire." 

"  It  is  the  only  weapon  of  you  scribblers. 
How  will  it  serve  me?  " 

Then  Horvendile   spoke.     Maugis  sat  listen- 

15 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

ing.  Above  the  swordhilt  the  thumb  of  one  hand 
was  stroking  the  knuckles  of  the  other  carefully. 
His  lean  and  sallow  face  stayed  changeless. 

Says  Maugis :  "  It  is  a  bold  stroke  —  yes. 
But  how  do  I  know  it  is  not  some  trap  for  me  ?  " 

Horvendile  shrugged,  and  asked :  "  Have  I 
not  served  you  constantly  in  the  past,  messire?  " 

"  You  have  suggested  makeshifts  very  cer- 
tainly. And  to  a  pretty  pass  they  have  brought 
me !  Here  I  roost  like  a  starved  buzzard,  with 
no  recreation  save  to  watch  the  turrets  of  Storis- 
ende  on  clear  afternoons." 

"  Where  Ettarre  prepares  to  marry  Sir 
Guiron,"  Horvendile  prompted. 

"  I  think  of  that.  .  .  .  She  is  very  beautiful, 
is  she  not,  Horvendile?  And  she  loves  this 
stately  kindly  fool  who  carries  his  fair  head  so 
high  and  has  no  reason  to  hide  anything  from  her. 
Yes,  she  is  very  beautiful,  being  created  perfect 
by  divine  malice  that  she  might  be  the  ruin  of 
men.  So  I  loved  her:  and  she  did  not  love  me, 
because  I  was  not  worthy  of  her  love.  And  Gui- 
ron is  in  all  things  worthy  of  her.  I  cannot  ever 
pardon  him  that,  Horvendile." 
16 


TRAFFIC      WITH      A      KNAVE 

"  And  I  am  pointing  out  a  way,  messire,  by 
which  you  may  reasonably  hope  to  deal  with  Sir 
Guiron  —  ho,  and  with  the  Counts  Emmerick  and 
Perion,  and  with  Ettarre  also  —  precisely  as  you 
elect." 

Then  Maugis  spoke  wearily*  "  I  must  trust 
you,  I  suppose.  But  I  have  no  lively  faith  in  my 
judgments  nowadays.  I  have  played  fast  and 
loose  with  too  many  men,  and  the  stench  of  their 
blood  is  in  my  nostrils,  drugging  me.  I  move  in 
a  half-sleep,  and  people's  talking  seems  remote 
and  foolish.  I  can  think  clearly  only  when  I 
think  of  how  tender  is  the  flesh  of  Ettarre.  Heh, 
a  lovely  flashing  peril  allures  me,  through  these 
days  of  fog,  and  I  must  trust  you.  Death  is  ugly, 
I  know;  but  life  is  ugly  too,  and  all  my  deeds  are 
strange  to  me." 

The  clerk  was  oddly  moved.  "  Do  you  not 
know  I  love  you  as  I  never  loved  Guiron?" 

"How  can  I  tell?  You  are  an  outlander. 
Your  ways  are  not  our  ways,"  says  the  brigand 
moodily.  "  And  what  have  I  to  do  with  love?  " 

"  You  will  talk  otherwise  when  you  drink  in  the 
count's  seat,  with  Ettarre  upon  your  knee,"  Hor- 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

vendile  considered.  "  Observe,  I  do  not  promise 
you  success !  Yet  I  would  have  you  remember  it 
was  by  very  much  this  same  device  that  Count 
Perion  won  the  sister  of  Ettarre." 

"  Heh,  if  we  fail,"  replies  Maugis,  "  I  shall  at 
least  have  done  with  remembering  .  .  ."  Then 
they  settled  details  of  the  business  in  hand. 

Thus  Horvendile  returned  to  Storisende  before 
twilight  had  thickened  into  nightfall.  He  came 
thus  to  a  place  different  in  all  things  from  the 
haggard  outlaw's  camp,  for  Count  Emmerick  held 
that  night  a  noble  revel.  There  was  gay  talk  and 
jest  and  dancing,  with  all  other  mirth  men  could 
devise. 


18 


IV 

How  the  Double-Dealer 
Was  of  Two  Minds 


IT  was  deep  silent  night  when  Horvendile  came 
into  the  room  where  Ettarre  slept.  "  Out, 
out !  "  cried  Horvendile.  "  Let  us  have  more 
light  here,  so  that  men  may  see  the  beauty  men  die 
for !  "  He  went  with  a  torch  from  lamp  to  lamp, 
kindling  them  all. 

Ettarre  stood  between  the  bed-curtains,  which 
were  green  hangings  worked  with  birds  and  beasts 
of  the  field,  each  in  his  proper  colors.  The  girl 
was  robed  in  white ;  and  upon  her  breast  gleamed 
the  broken  sigil  of  Scoteia,  that  famed  talisman 
which  never  left  her  person.  She  wore  a  scarlet 
girdle  about  her  middle,  and  her  loosened  yel- 
low hair  fell  heavy  about  her.  Her  fine  proud 
face  questioned  the  clerk  in  silence,  without  any 
trace  of  fear. 

4  We  must  wait  now,"  says  Horvendile,  "  wait 
patiently  for  that  which  is  to  follow.  For  while 

19 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

the  folk  of  Storisende  slept  —  while  your  fair, 
favored  lover  slept,  Ettarre,  and  your  stout 
brothers  Emmerick  and  Perion  slept,  and  all  per- 
sons who  are  your  servitors  and  well-wishers  slept 
—  I,  I,  the  puppet-shifter,  have  admitted  Maugis 
d'Aigremont  and  his  men  into  this  castle.  They 
are  at  work  now,  hammer-and-tongs,  to  decide 
who  shall  be  master  of  Storisende  and  you." 

Her  first  speech  you  would  have  found  odd  at 
such  a  time.  "  But,  oh,  it  was  not  you  who  be- 
trayed us,  Horvendile  —  not  you  whom  Guiron 
loved  I" 

"  You  forget,"  he  returned,  "  that  I,  who  am 
without  any  hope  to  win  you,  must  attempt  to  view 
the  squabbling  of  your  other  lovers  without  bias. 
It  is  the  custom  of  omnipotence  to  do  that,  Et- 
tarre. I  have  given  Maugis  d'Aigremont  an 
equal  chance  with  Sir  Guiron.  It  is  the  custom 
of  omnipotence  to  do  that  also,  Ettarre.  You 
will  remember  the  tale  was  trite  even  in  Job's 
far  time  that  the  sweetmeats  of  life  do  not  in- 
variably fall  to  immaculate  people." 

Then,  as  if  on  a  sudden,  Dame  Ettarre  seemed 
to  understand  that  the  clerk's  brain  had  been 
20 


THE     DOUBLE-DEALER     OF     TWO     MINDS 

turned  through  his  hopeless  love  for  her.  She 
wondered,  dizzily,  how  she  could  have  stayed 
blind  to  his  insanity  this  long,  recollecting  the  in- 
consequence of  his  acts  and  speeches  in  the  past; 
but  matters  of  heavier  urgency  were  at  hand. 
Here,  with  this  apparent  madman,  she  was  on 
perilous  ground;  but  now  had  arisen  a  hideous 
contention  without;  and  the  shrieks  there,  and  the 
clash  of  metal  there,  spoke  with  rude  eloquence 
of  a  harborage  even  less  desirable. 

"  Heaven  will  defend  the  right!  "  Ettarre  said 
bravely. 

"  I  am  not  so  sure  that  heaven  has  any  finger  in 
this  pie.  An  arras  hides  all.  It  will  lift  pres- 
ently, and  either  Good  or  Evil,  either  Guiron  or 
Maugis,  will  come  through  that  arras  as  your 
master.  I  am  not  certain  as  yet  which  one  I 
shall  permit  to  enter;  and  the  matter  rests  with 
me,  Ettarre. " 

"  Heaven  will  defend  the  right!  "  Ettarre  said 
bravely. 

And  at  that  the  arras  quivered  and  heaved,  so 
that  its  heavy  embroideries  were  converted  into 
a  welter  of  shimmering  gold,  bright  in  the  glare 

21 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

of  many  lamps,  sparkling  like  the  ocean's  waters 
at  sunset;  and  Horvendile  and  Ettarre  saw  noth- 
ing else  there  for  a  breathless  moment,  which 
seemed  to  last  for  a  great  while.  Then,  parting, 
the  arras  yielded  up  Maugis  d'Aigremont. 
Horvendile  chuckled. 


22 


Treats  of  Maugis  D'Aigre- 
mont's  Pottage 


MAUGIS  came  forward,  his  eyes  fixed  hun- 
grily upon  Ettarre.  "  So  a  long  strug- 
gle ends,"  he  said,  very  quiet.  "  There 
is  no  virtue  left,  Ettarre,  save  patience." 

'*  While  life  remains  I  shall  not  cease  to  shriek 
out  your  villainy.  O  God,  men  have  let  Guiron 
die  !  "  she  wailed. 

"  I  will  cause  you  to  forget  that  death  is  dread- 
ful, Ettarre!" 

"  I  need  no  teacher  now.  .  .  .  And  so,  Guiron 
is  dead  and  I  yet  live!  I  had  not  thought  that 
would  be  possible."  She  whispered  this.  "  Give 
me  your  sword,  Maugis,  for  just  a  little  while,  and 
then  I  will  not  hate  you  any  longer." 

The  man  said,  with  dreary  patience:  "  Yes, 
you  would  die  rather  than  endure  my  touch.  And 
through  my  desire  of  you  I  have  been  stripped  of 
wealth  and  joy  and  honor,  and  even  of  hope; 

23 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE     JEST 

through  my  desire  of  you  I  have  held  much  filthy 
traffic,  with  treachery  and  theft  and  murder,  traf- 
fic such  as  my  soul  loathed :  and  to  no  avail !  Yes, 
I  have  been  guilty  of  many  wickednesses,  as  men 
estimate  these  matters;  and  yet,  I  swear  to  you,  I 
seem  to  myself  to  be  still  that  boy  with  whom  you 
used  to  play,  when  you  too  were  a  child,  Ettarre, 
and  did  not  hate  me.  Heh,  it  is  very  strange  how 
affairs  fall  out  in  this  world  of  ours,  so  that  a 
man  may  discern  no  aim  or  purpose  anywhere !  " 

"  Yet  it  is  all  foreplanned,  Maugis."  Horven- 
dile  spoke  thus. 

"  And  to  what  end  have  you  ensnared  me,  Hor- 
vendile?" says  Maugis,  turning  wearily.  "  For 
the  attack  on  Storisende  has  failed,  and  I  am  dy- 
ing of  many  wounds,  Horvendile.  See  how  I 
bleed !  Guiron  and  Perion  and  Emmerick  and  all 
their  men  are  hunting  me  everywhere  beyond  that 
arras,  and  I  am  frightened,  Horvendile  —  even 
I,  who  was  Maugis,  am  frightened !  —  lest  any  of 
them  find  me  here.  For  I  desire  now  only  to  die 
untroubled.  Oh,  Horvendile,  in  an  ill  hour  I 
trusted  you !  " 

As  knave  and  madman,  Ettarre  saw  the  double- 
24 


MAUGIS      D'AIGREMONT'S      POTTAGE 

dealer  and  his  dupe  confront  each  other.  In  the 
haggard  face  of  Maugis,  no  longer  evil,  showed 
only  puzzled  lassitude.  In  the  hand  of  Horven- 
dile  a  dagger  glittered;  and  his  face  was  pensive. 

"  My  poor  Maugis,  it  is  not  yet  time  I  make  my 
dealings  plain  to  you.  It  suffices  that  you  have 
served  my  turn,  Maugis,  and  that  of  you  I  have 
no  need  any  longer.  You  must  die  now,  Maugis." 

Ettarre  feared  this  frozen  madman,  she  who 
was  by  ordinary  fearless.  Ettarre  turned  away 
her  face,  so  that  she  might  not  see  the  two  men 
grapple.  Without,  the  uproar  continued  —  for 
a  long  while,  it  seemed.  When  she  looked  again 
it  was,  by  some  great  wonder-working,  to  meet 
Guiron's  eyes  and  Guiron's  lips. 


VI 

Journeys  End:  With  the. 
Customary  Unmasking 


M 


44  TV     Jf  Y  love,  Ettarre,  they  have  not  harmed 
you?" 

"  None  has  harmed  me,  Guiron. 
Oh,  and  you?" 

"  Maugis  is  dead,"  he  answered  joyously. 
"  See,  here  he  lies,  slain  by  brave  Horvendile. 
And  the  rogues  who  followed  Maugis  are  all 
killed  or  fled.  Our  woes  are  at  an  end,  dear 
love." 

Then  Ettarre  saw  that  Horvendile  indeed 
waited  beside  the  dead  body  of  Maugis  d'Aigre- 
mont.  And  the  clerk  stayed  motionless  while  she 
told  Guiron  of  Horvendile's  baleful  work. 

Sir  Guiron  then  said:  "Is  this  true  speech, 
Horvendile?" 

"  It  is  quite  true  I  have  done  all  these  things, 
messire,"  Horvendile  answered  quietly. 
26 


JOURNEYS  END 

"And  with  what  purpose?"  said  Sir  Guiron, 
very  sadly;  for  to  him  too  it  seemed  certain  that 
such  senseless  treachery  could  not  spring  from 
anything  but  madness,  and  he  had  loved  Hor- 
vendile. 

"  I  will  tell  you,"  Horvendile  replied,  "  though 
I  much  fear  you  will  not  understand  — "  He 
meditated,  shook  his  head,  smiling.  "  Indeed, 
how  is  it  possible  for  me  to  make  you  understand? 
Well,  I  blurt  out  the  truth.  There  was  once  in  a 
land  very  far  away  from  this  land  —  in  my  coun- 
try —  a  writer  of  romances.  And  once  he  con- 
structed a  romance  which,  after  a  hackneyed  cus- 
tom of  my  country,  purported  to  be  translated 
from  an  old  manuscript  written  by  an  ancient  clerk 
—  called  Horvendile.  It  told  of  Horvendile's 
part  in  the  love-business  between  Sir  Guiron  des 
Rocques  and  La  Beale  Ettarre.  I  am  that  writer 
of  romance.  This  room,  this  castle,  all  the  broad 
rolling  countryside  without,  is  but  a  portion  of  my 
dream,  and  these  places  have  no  existence  save  in 
my  fancies.  And  you,  messire  —  and  you  also, 
madame  —  and  dead  Maugis  here,  and  all  the 
others  who  seemed  so  real  to  me,  are  but  the  pup- 

27 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

pets  I  fashioned  and  shifted,  for  a  tale's  sake,  in 
that  romance  which  now  draws  to  a  close." 

He  paused;  and  Sir  Guiron  sighed.  "My 
poor  Horvendile !  "  was  all  he  said. 

"  It  is  not  possible  for  you  to  believe  me,  of 
course.  And  it  may  be  that  I,  too,  am  only  a 
figment  of  some  greater  dream,  in  just  such  case 
as  yours,  and  that  I,  too,  cannot  understand.  It 
may  be  the  very  cream  of  the  jest  that  my  country 
is  no  more  real  than  Storisende.  How  could  I 
judge  if  I,  too,  were  a  puppet?  It  is  a  thought 
which  often  troubles  me.  .  .  ." 

Horvendile  deliberated,  then  spoke  more 
briskly.  "  At  all  events,  I  must  return  now  to 
my  own  country,  which  I  do  not  love  as  I  love 
this  bright  fantastic  tiny  land  that  I  created  — 
or  seemed  to  create  —  and  wherein  I  was  —  or 
seemed  to  be  —  omnipotent." 

Horvendile  drew  a  deep  breath;  and  he  looked 
downward  at  the  corpse  he  had  bereft  of  pride 
and  daring  and  agility.  "  Farewell,  Maugis !  It 
would  be  indecorous,  above  all  in  omnipotence,  to 
express  anything  save  abhorrence  toward  you : 
yet  I  delighted  in  you  as  you  lived  and  moved; 
28 


JOURNEYS  END 

and  it  was  not  because  of  displeasure  with  you 
that  I  brought  you  to  disaster.  Hence,  also,  one 
might  evolve  a  heady  analogue.  .  .  ." 

Guiron  was  wondering  what  he  might  do  in 
accord  with  honor  and  with  clemency.  He  did 
not  stir  as  Horvendile  came  nearer.  The  clerk 
showed  very  pitiful  and  mean  beside  this  stately 
champion  in  full  armor,  all  shining  metal,  save 
for  a  surcoat  of  rose-colored  stuff  irregularly 
worked  with  crescents  of  silver. 

"Farewell,  Sir  Guiron!"  Horvendile  then 
said.  "  There  are  no  men  like  you  in  my  coun- 
try. I  have  found  you  difficult  to  manage;  and 
I  may  confess  now  that  I  kept  you  so  long  im- 
prisoned at  Caer  Idryn,  and  caused  you  to  spend 
so  many  chapters  oversea  in  heathendom,  mainly 
in  order  that  I  might  weave  out  my  romance  here 
untroubled  by  your  disconcerting  and  rather 
wooden  perfection.  But  you  are  not  the  person 
to  suspect  ill  of  your  creator.  You  are  all  that 
I  once  meant  to  be,  Guiron,  all  that  I  have  for- 
gotten how  to  be ;  and  for  a  dead  boy's  sake  I  love 
you." 

"  Listen,  poor  wretch!  "  Sir  Guiron  answered, 

29 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

sternly;  "  you  have  this  night  done  horrible  mis- 
chief, you  have  caused  the  death  of  many  estim- 
able persons.  Yet  I  have  loved  you,  Horvendile, 
and  I  know  that  heaven,  through  heaven's  in- 
scrutable wisdom,  has  smitten  you  with  madness. 
That  stair  leads  to  the  postern  on  the  east  side  of 
the  castle.  Go  forth  from  Storisende  as  quickly 
as  you  may,  whilst  none  save  us  knows  of  your 
double-dealings.  It  may  be  that  I  am  doing  great 
wrong;  but  I  cannot  forget  I  have  twice  owed  my 
life  to  you.  If  I  must  err  at  all  hazards,  I  prefer 
to  err  upon  the  side  of  gratitude  and  mercy." 

:t  That  is  said  very  like  you,"  Horvendile  re- 
plied. "  Eh,  it  was  not  for  nothing  I  endowed 
you  with  sky-towering  magnanimity.  Assuredly, 
I  go,  messire.  And  so,  farewell,  Ettarre !  " 
Long  and  long  Horvendile  gazed  upon  the  maiden. 
"  There  is  no  woman  like  you  in  my  country,  Et- 
tarre. I  can  find  no  woman  anywhere  resembling 
you  whom  dreams  alone  may  win  to.  It  is  a  lit- 
tle thing  to  say  that  I  have  loved  you ;  it  is  a  bitter 
thing  to  know  that  I  must  live  among,  and  pursue, 
and  win,  those  other  women." 

"  My  poor  Horvendile,"  she  answered,  very 

30 


JOURNEYS  END 

lovely  in  her  compassion,  "  you  are  in  love  with 
fantasies." 

He  held  her  hand,  touching  her  for  the  last 
time;  and  he  trembled.  "  Yes,  I  am  in  love  with 
my  fantasies,  Ettarre;  and,  none  the  less,  I  must 
return  into  my  own  country  and  abide  there  al- 
ways. .  .  ." 

As  he  considered  the  future,  in  the  man's  face 
showed  only  puzzled  lassitude;  and  you  saw 
therein  a  quaint  resemblance  to  Maugis  d'Aigre- 
mont.  "  I  find  my  country  an  inadequate  place  in 
which  to  live,"  says  Horvendile.  "  Oh,  many 
persons  live  there  happily  enough !  or,  at  worst, 
they  seem  to  find  the  prizes  and  the  applause  of 
my  country  worth  striving  for  whole-heartedly. 
But  there  is  that  in  some  of  us  which  gets  no 
exercise  there;  and  we  struggle  blindly,  with  im- 
potent yearning,  to  gain  outlet  for  great  powers 
which  we  know  that  we  possess,  even  though  we 
do  not  know  their  names.  And  so,  we  dreamers 
wander  at  adventure  to  Storisende  —  oh,  and  into 
more  perilous  realms  sometimes !  —  in  search  of 
a  life  that  will  find  employment  for  every  faculty 
we  have.  For  life  in  my  country  does  not  engross 

Ji 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

us  utterly.  We  dreamers  waste  there  at  loose 
ends,  waste  futilely.  All  which  we  can  ever  see 
and  hear  and  touch  there,  we  dreamers  dimly 
know,  is  at  best  but  a  portion  of  the  truth,  and  is 
possibly  not  true  at  all.  Oh,  yes !  it  may  be  that 
we  are  not  sane ;  could  we  be  sure  of  that,  it  would 
be  a  comfort.  But,  as  it  is,  we  dreamers  only 
know  that  life  in  my  country  does  not  content  us, 
and  never  can  content  us.  So  we  struggle,  for  a 
tiny  dear-bought  while,  into  other  and  fairer- 
seeming  lands  in  search  of  — •  we  know  not  what ! 
And,  after  a  little "• —  he  relinquished  the 
maiden's  hands,  spread  out  his  own  hands,  shrug- 
ging— "  after  a  little,  we  must  go  back  into  my 
country  and  live  there  as  best  we  may." 

A  whimsical  wise  smile  now  visited  Ettarre's 
lips.  Her  hands  went  to  her  breast,  and  presently 
one  half  the  broken  sigil  of  Scoteia  lay  in  Hor- 
vendile's  hand.  "  You  will  not  always  abide  in 
your  own  country,  Horvendile.  Some  day  you 
will  return  to  us  at  Storisende.  The  sign  of  the 
Dark  Goddess  will  prove  your  safe-conduct  then 
if  Guiron  and  I  be  yet  alive." 

Horvendile  raised  to  his  mouth  the  talisman 
32 


JOURNEYS  END 

warmed  by  contact  with  her  sweet  flesh.  "  It 
may  be  you  will  not  live  for  a  great  while,"  he 
says;  u  but  that  will  befall  through  no  lack  of  lov- 
ing pains  on  your  creator's  part." 

Then  Horvendile  left  them.  In  the  dark  pas- 
sage-way he  paused,  looking  back  at  Guiron  and 
Ettarre  for  a  heart-beat.  Guiron  and  Ettarre 
had  already  forgotten  his  existence.  Hand-in- 
hand  they  stood  in  the  bright  room,  young,  beau- 
tiful and  glad.  Silently  their  lips  met. 

Horvendile  closed  the  door,  and  so  left  Storis- 
ende  forever.  Without  he  came  into  a  lonely 
quiet-colored  world  already  expectant  of  dawn's 
occupancy.  Already  the  tree-trunks  eastward 
showed  like  the  black  bars  of  a  grate.  Thus  he 
walked  in  twilight,  carrying  half  the  sigil  of 
Scoteia. 


33 


Book  Second 


"Whate'er  she  be  — 
That  inaccessible  She 
That  doth  command  my  heart  and  me: 

"Till  that  divine 
Idea  take  a  shrine 
Of  crystal  flesh,  through  which  to  shine: 

"  Let  her  full  glory, 
My  fancies,  fly  before  ye ; 
Be  ye  my  fictions  —  but  her  story." 


Of  a  Trifle  Found  in 
Twilight 

THUS  he  walked  in  twilight,  regretful 
that  he  must  return  to  his  own  country, 
and  live  another  life,  and  bear  another 
name  than  that  of  Horvendile.  ...  It  was  droll 
that  in  his  own  country  folk  should  call  him  Felix, 
since  Felix  meant  u  happy  " ;  and  assuredly  he 
was  not  pre-eminently  happy  there. 

At  least  he  had  ended  the  love-business  of  Et- 
tarre  and  Guiron  happily,  however  droll  the  neces- 
sitated makeshifts  might  have  been.  .  .  .  He  had 
very  certainly  introduced  the  god  in  the  car, 
against  Horatian  admonition,  had  wound  up  af- 
fairs with  a  sort  of  transformation  scene.  .  .  . 
It  was,  perhaps,  at  once  too  hackneyed  and  too 
odd  an  ending  to  be  aesthetically  satisfactory,  after 
all.  .  .  .  Why,  beyond  doubt  it  was.  He 
shrugged  his  impatience. 

"  Yet  —  what  a  true  ending  it  would  be!  "  he 

37 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

reflected.  He  was  still  walking  in  twilight  —  for 
the  time  was  approaching  sunset  —  in  the  gardens 
of  Alcluid.  He  must  devise  another  ending  for 
this  high-hearted  story  of  Guiron  and  Ettarre. 

Felix  Kennaston  smiled  a  little  over  the  thought 
of  ending  the  romance  with  such  topsy-turvy  anti- 
climaxes as  his  woolgathering  wits  had  blundered 
into;  and,  stooping,  picked  up  a  shining  bit  of 
metal  that  lay  beside  the  pathway.  He  was  con- 
scious of  a  vague  notion  he  had  just  dropped  this 
bit  of  metal. 

"  It  is  droll  how  all  great  geniuses  instinctively 
plagiarize/'  he  reflected.  "  I  must  have  seen  this 
a  half-hour  ago,  when  I  was  walking  up  and  down 
planning  my  final  chapters.  And  so,  I  wove  it 
into  the  tale  as  a  breast-ornament  for  Ettarre, 
without  ever  consciously  seeing  the  thing  at  all. 
Then,  presto !  I  awake  and  find  it  growing  dark, 
with  me  lackadaisically  roaming  in  twilight  clasp- 
ing this  bauble,  just  as  I  imagined  Horvendile 
walking  out  of  the  castle  of  Storisende  carrying 
much  such  a  bauble.  Oh,  yes,  the  processes  of  in- 
spiration are  as  irrational  as  if  all  poets  took  after 
their  mothers." 

38 


A    TRIFLE    FOUND    IN    TWILIGHT 

This  bit  of  metal,  Kennaston  afterward  ascer- 
tained, was  almost  an  exact  half  of  a  disk,  not 
quite  three  inches  in  diameter,  which  somehow 
had  been  broken  or  cut  in  two.  It  was  of 
burnished  metal  —  lead,  he  thought  — about  a 
sixteenth  of  an  inch  in  thickness;  and  its  single 
notable  feature  was  the  tiny  characters  with  which 
one  surface  was  inscribed. 

Later  Felix  Kennaston  was  destined  to  puzzle 
over  his  inability  to  recollect  what  motive 
prompted  him  to  slip  this  glittering  trifle  into  his 
pocket.  A  trifle  was  all  that  it  seemed  then.  He 
always  remembered  quite  clearly  how  it  sparkled 
in  the  abating  glare  of  that  day's  portentous  sun- 
set; and  how  the  tree-trunks  westward  showed  like 
the  black  bars  of  a  grate,  as  he  walked  slowly 
through  the  gardens  of  Alcluid.  Alcluid,  be  it 
explained,  was  the  queer  name  with  which  Felix 
Kennaston's  progenitors  had  seen  fit  to  christen 
their  fine  country  home  near  Lichfield. 


39 


II 

Beyond  Use  and  Wont 
Fares  the  Road  to 
Storisende 


KENNASTON  was  to  recall,  also,  that  on 
this  evening  he  dined  alone  with  his  wife, 
sharing  a  taciturn  meal.     He  and  Kath- 
leen talked  of  very  little,  now,  save  the  existent 
day's  small  happenings,  such  as  having  seen  So- 
and-so,  and  of  So-and-so's  having  said  this-or-that, 
as  Kennaston  reflected  in  the  solitude  of  the  li- 
brary.    But   soon   he   was   contentedly   laboring 
upon  the  book  he  had  always  intended  to  write 
some  day. 

Off  and  on,  in  common  with  most  high-school 
graduates,  Felix  Kennaston  had  been  an  "  intend- 
ing contributor  "  to  various  magazines,  spasmod- 
ically bartering  his  postage-stamps  for  courteously- 
worded  rejection-slips.  Then,  too,  in  the  old 
days  before  his  marriage,  when  Kennaston  had 
40 


THE      ROAD      TO      STORISENDE 

come  so  near  to  capturing  Margaret  Hugonin  and 
her  big  fortune,  the  heiress  had  paid  for  the  print- 
ing of  The  King's  Quest  and  its  companion  enter- 
prises in  rhyme,  as  well  as  the  prose  Defence  of 
Ignorance  —  wide-margined  specimens  of  the 
far-fetched  decadence  then  in  vogue,  and  the  idol 
of  Kennaston's  youth,  when  he  had  seriously  es- 
sayed the  parlor-tricks  of  "  stylists." 

And  it  was  once  a  familiar  story  how  Marian 
Winwood  got  revenge  on  Felix  Kennaston,  when 
he  married  Kathleen  Saumarez,  by  publishing,  in 
a  transparent  guise  of  fiction,  all  the  love-letters 
he  had  written  Miss  Winwood;  so  that  Kennaston 
might  also  have  claimed  to  be  generally  recog- 
nized as  the  actual  author  of  her  Epistles  of  An- 
anias, which  years  ago  created  some  literary  stir. 


But  this  book  was  to  be  different  from  any  of 
his  previous  compositions.  To  paraphrase  Felix 
Kennaston's  own  words  (as  recorded  in  the  "  Col- 
ophon "  to  Men  Who  Loved  Alison),  he  had  de- 
termined in  this  story  lovingly  to  deal  with  an 
epoch  and  a  society,  and  even  a  geography,  whose 
comeliness  had  escaped  the  wear-and-tear  of  ever 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

actually  existing.  He  had  attempted  a  jaunt  into 
that  "  happy,  harmless  Fable-land "  which  is 
bounded  by  Avalon  and  Phaeacia  and  Sea-coast 
Bohemia,  and  the  contiguous  forests  of  Arden  and 
Broceliande,  and  on  the  west  of  course  by  the 
Hesperides,  because  he  believed  this  country  to  be 
the  one  possible  setting  for  a  really  satisfactory 
novel,  even  though  its  byways  can  boast  of  little 
traffic  nowadays.  He  was  completing,  in  fine, 
The  Audit  at  Storisende  —  or,  rather,  Men  Who 
Loved  Alison,  as  the  book  came  afterward  to  be 
called. 

Competent  critics  in  plenty  have  shrugged  over 
Kennaston's  pretense  therein  that  the  romance  is 
translated  from  an  ancient  manuscript.  But  to 
Kennaston  the  clerk  Horvendile,  the  fictitious  first 
writer  of  the  chronicle  and  eye-witness  of  its 
events,  was  necessary.  No  doubt  it  handicapped 
the  story's  progress,  so  to  contrive  matters  that 
one  subsidiary  character  should  invariably  be  at 
hand  when  important  doings  were  in  execution, 
and  should  be  taken  more  or  less  into  everyone's 
confidence  —  but  then,  somehow,  it  made  the  tale 
seem  real. 
42 


THE      ROAD      TO      STORISENDE 

For  in  the  writing  it  all  seemed  perfectly  real  to 
Felix  Kennaston.  His  life  was  rather  barren  of 
motive  now.  In  remoter  times,  when  he  had  wan- 
dered impecuniously  from  one  adventure  to  an- 
other, sponging  without  hesitancy  upon  such 
wealthy  people  as  his  chatter  amused,  there  had 
always  been  exquisite  girls  to  make  love  to  —  such 
girls  as  the  younger  generation  did  not  produce  — 
and  the  ever-present  problem  of  whence  was  to 
come  the  fares  for  to-morrow's  hansoms,  in  which 
the  younger  generation  did  not  ride.  For  now 
hansom  cabs  were  wellnigh  as  extinct  as  veloci- 
pedes or  sedan-chairs,  he  owned  two  motors,  and, 
by  the  drollest  turn,  had  money  in  four  banks. 
As  recreation  went,  he  and  Kathleen  had  in  Lich- 
field  their  round  of  decorous  social  duties;  and 
there  was  nothing  else  to  potter  with  save  the 
writing.  And  a  little  by  a  little  the  life  he  wrote 
of  came  to  seem  to  Felix  Kennaston  more  real, 
and  far  more  vital,  than  the  life  his  body  was 
shuffling  through  aimlessly. 

For  as  Horvendile  he  lived  among  such  gallant 
circumstances  as  he  had  always  vaguely  hoped  his 
real  life  might  provide  to-morrow.  This  Hor- 

43 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

vendile,  coming  unintelligibly  to  Storisende,  and 
witnessing  there  the  long  combat  between  Sir 
Guiron  des  Rocques  and  Maugis  d'Aigremont  for 
possession  of  La  Beale  Alison  —  as  Kennaston's 
heroine  is  called  of  course  in  the  printed  book  — 
seems  to  us  in  reading  the  tale  no  very  striking 
figure;  as  in  Rob  Roy  and  Esmond,  it  is  not  to  the 
narrator,  but  to  the  people  and  events  he  tells  of, 
that  attention  is  riveted.  But  Felix  Kennaston, 
writing  the  book,  lived  the  life  of  Horvendile  in 
the  long  happy  hours  of  writing,  which  became 
longer  and  longer;  and  insensibly  his  existence 
blended  and  was  absorbed  into  the  more  colorful 
life  of  Horvendile.  It  was  as  Horvendile  he 
wrote,  seeming  actually  at  times  to  remember  what 
he  recorded,  rather  than  to  invent.  .  .  . 

And  he  called  it  inspiration.  .  .  . 

So  the  tale  flowed  on,  telling  how  Count  Em- 
merick  planned  a  notable  marriage-feast  for  his 
sister  La  Beale  Ettarre  and  Sir  Guiron  des  Roc- 
ques, with  vastly  different  results  from  those  al- 
ready recorded  —  with  the  results,  in  fine,  which 
figure  in  the  printed  Men  Who  Loved  Alison, 
where  Horvendile  keeps  his  proper  place  as  a 
44 


THE      ROAD      TO      STORISENDE 

more-or-less  convenient  device  for  getting  the  tale 
told. 

But  to  Kennaston  that  first  irrational  winding- 
up  of  affairs,  wherein  a  world's  creator  was  able 
to  wring  only  contempt  and  pity  from  his  puppets 
—  since  he  had  not  endowed  them  with  any  fac- 
ulties wherewith  to  comprehend  their  creator's 
nature  and  intent  —  was  always  the  tale's  real 
ending.  .  .  . 


So  it  was  that  the  lonely  man  lived  with  his 
dreams,  and  toiled  for  the  vision's  sake  content- 
edly; and  we  of  Lichfield  who  were  most  familiar 
with  Felix  Kennaston  in  the  flesh  knew  nothing 
then  of  his  mental  diversions;  and,  with  knowl- 
edge, would  probably  have  liked  him  not  a  bit 
the  better.  For  ordinary  human  beings,  as  all 
other  normal  forms  of  life,  turn  naturally  toward 
the  sun,  and  are  at  their  best  thereunder;  but  it  is 
the  misfortune  of  dreamers  that  their  peculiar 
talents  find  no  exercise  in  daylight.  So  we  re- 
garded Kennaston  with  the  distrust  universally  ac- 
corded people  who  need  to  be  meddling  with  ideas 
in  a  world  which  sustains  its  mental  credit  com- 

45 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

fortably  enough  with  a  current  coinage  of  phrases. 

And  therefore  it  may  well  be  that  I  am  setting 
down  his  story  not  all  in  sympathy,  for  in  perfect 
candor  I  never,  quite,  liked  Felix  Kennaston. 
His  high-pitched  voice  in  talking,  to  begin  with, 
was  irritating:  you  knew  it  was  not  his  natural 
voice,  and  found  it  so  entirely  senseless  for  him 
to  speak  thus.  Then,  too,  the  nervous  and  trivial 
grin  with  which  he  prefaced  almost  all  his  infre- 
quent remarks  —  and  the  odd  little  noise,  that  was 
nearly  a  snigger  and  just  missed  being  a  cough, 
with  which  he  ended  them  —  was  peculiarly  unin- 
gratiating  in  a  fat  and  middle-aged  person;  his 
weak  eyes  very  rarely  met  yours  full-gaze;  and  he 
was  continually  handling  his  face  or  fidgeting  with 
a  cigarette  or  twisting  in  his  chair.  When  listen- 
ing to  you  he  usually  nibbled  at  his  finger-nails, 
and  when  he  talked  he  had  a  secretive  way  of  look- 
ing at  them. 

Such  habits  are  not  wholly  incompatible  with 
wisdom  or  generosity,  and  the  devil's  advocate 
would  not  advance  them  against  their  possessor's 
canonization;  none  the  less,  in  everyday  life  they 
make  against  your  enjoying  a  chat  with  their  pos- 

46 


THE      ROAD      TO      STORISENDE 

sessor:  and  as  for  Kennaston's  undeniable  mental 
gifts,  there  is  no  escaping,  at  times,  the  gloomy 
suspicion  that  fiddling  with  pens  and  ink  is,  after 
all,  no  fit  employment  for  a  grown  man. 

Felix  Kennaston,  to  fix  the  word,  was  inade- 
quate. His  books  apart,  he  was  as  a  human  being 
a  failure.  Indeed,  in  some  inexpressible  fashion, 
he  impressed  you  as  uneasily  shirking  life.  Cer- 
tainly he  seemed  since  his  marriage  to  have  re- 
linquished all  conversational  obligations  to  his 
wife.  She  had  a  curious  trick  of  explaining  him, 
before  his  face  —  in  a  manner  which  was  not  un- 
reminiscent  of  the  lecturer  in  "  side-shows  "  point- 
ing out  the  peculiarities  of  the  living  skeleton  or 
the  glass-eater;  but  it  was  done  with  such  ill-con- 
cealed pride  in  him  that  I  found  it  touching,  even 
when  she  was  boring  me  about  the  varieties  of 
food  he  could  not  be  induced  to  touch  or  his 
finicky  passion  for  saving  every  bit  of  string  he 
came  across. 

That  suggests  a  minor  mystery:  many  women 
had  been  fond  of  Felix  Kennaston ;  and  I  have  yet 
to  find  a  man  who  liked  him  even  moderately,  to 
offset  the  host  who  marveled,  with  unseemly  epi- 

47 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

thets,  as  to  what  these  women  saw  in  him.  My 
wife  explains  it,  rather  enigmatically,  that  he  was 
"  just  a  twoser  " ;  and  that,  in  addition,  he  ex- 
pected women  to  look  after  him,  so  that  naturally 
they  did.  To  her  superior  knowledge  of  the  fem- 
inine mind  I  can  but  bow :  with  the  addition  (quot- 
ing the  same  authority)  that  a  u  twoser  "  is  a 
trousered  individual  addicted  to  dumbness  in  com- 
pany and  the  very  thrilliest  sort  of  play-acting  in 
tete-a-tetes. 

At  all  events,  I  never  quite  liked  Felix  Kennas- 
ton  —  not  even  after  I  came  to  understand  that 
the  man  I  knew  in  the  flesh  was  but  a  very  ill- 
drawn  likeness  of  Felix  Kennaston.  After  all, 
that  is  the  whole  sardonic  point  of  his  story  — 
and,  indeed,  of  every  human  story  —  that  the  per- 
son you  or  I  find  in  the  mirror  is  condemned  eter- 
nally to  misrepresent  us  in  the  eyes  of  our  fellows. 
But  even  with  comprehension,  I  never  cordially 
liked  the  man;  and  so,  it  may  well  be  that  his  story 
is  set  down  not  all  in  sympathy. 

With  which  Gargantuan  parenthesis,  in  equit- 
able warning,  I  return  again  to  his  story. 


Of  Idle  Speculations  in  a 
Library 

FLIX  KENNASTON  did  not  write  very 
long  that  night.     He  fell  idly  to  the  droll 
familiar  wondering  how  this  dull   fellow 
seated  here  in  this  luxurious  room  could  actually 
be  Felix  Kennaston.  .   .  . 

He  was  glad  this  spacious  and  subduedly-glow- 
ing  place,  and  all  the  comfortable  appointments 
of  Alcluid,  belonged  to  him.  He  had  seen 
enough  of  the  scrambling  hand-to-mouth  make- 
shifts of  poverty,  in  poverty's  heart-depressing 
habitations,  during  the  thirty-eight  years  he 
weathered  before  the  simultaneous  deaths, 
through  a  motor  accident,  of  a  semi-mythical  per- 
sonage known  since  childhood  as  "  your  Uncle 
Henry  in  Lichfield,"  and  of  Uncle  Henry's  only 
son  as  well,  had  raised  Felix  Kennaston  beyond 
monetary  frets.  As  yet  Kennaston  did  not  very 
profoundly  believe  in  this  unlooked-for  turn;  and 

49 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

in  the  library  of  his  fine  house  in  particular  he  had 
still  a  sense  of  treading  alien  territory  under 
sufferance. 

Yet  it  was  a  territory  which  tempted  explora- 
tion with  alluring  vistas.  Kennaston  had  always 
been,  when  there  was  time  for  it,  "  very  fond  of 
reading,"  as  his  wife  was  used  to  state  in  tones 
of  blended  patronage  and  apology.  Kathleen 
Kennaston,  in  the  old  days  of  poverty,  had  de- 
claimed too  many  pilfered  dicta  concerning  liter- 
ary matters  to  retain  any  liking  for  them. 

As  possibly  you  may  recall,  for  some  years  after 
the  death  of  her  first  husband,  Kathleen  Eppes 
Saumarez  had  earned  precarious  bread  and  butter 
as  a  lecturer  before  women's  clubs,  and  was  more 
or  less  engaged  in  journalism,  chiefly  as  a  re- 
viewer of  current  literature.  For  all  books  she 
had  thus  acquired  an  abiding  dislike.  In  particu- 
lar, I  think,  she  loathed  the  two  volumes  of 
"  woodland  tales  "  collected  in  those  necessitous 
years,  from  her  Woman's  Page  in  the  Lichfield 
Courier-Herald,  for  the  fickle  general  reading- 
public,  which  then  used  to  follow  the  life-histories 
of  Bazoo  the  Bear  and  Mooshwa  the  Mink,  and 
50 


OF    IDLE    SPECULATIONS    IN    A    LIBRARY 

other  "  citizens  of  the  wild,"  with  that  incalcul- 
able unanimity  which  to-day  may  be  reserved  for 
the  biographies  of  optimistic  orphans,  and  to-mor- 
row veers  to  vies  in  times  of  high-minded  courte- 
sans with  hearts  of  gold.  ...  In  fine,  through  a 
variety  of  reasons,  Mrs.  Kennaston  quite  frankly 
cared  even  less  for  books,  as  manifestations  of 
art,  than  does  the  average  tolerably  honest  woman 
to  whom  books  do  not  represent  a  source  of  in- 
come. 

And  you  may  or  may  not  remember,  likewise, 
what  Kennaston  wrote,  about  this  time,  in  the 
"  Colophon  "  to  Men  Who  Loved  Alison.  With 
increased  knowledge  of  the  author,  some  sentences 
therein,  to  me  at  least,  took  on  larger  significance : 

"  No  one,  I  take  it,  can  afford  to  do  without 
books  unless  he  be  quite  sure  that  his  own  day  and 
personality  are  the  best  imaginable;  and  for  this 
class  of  persons  the  most  crying  need  is  not,  of 
course,  seclusion  in  a  library,  but  in  a  sanatorium. 

"  It  was,  instead,  for  the  great  generality,  who 
combine  a  taste  for  travel  with  a  dislike  for  leav- 
ing home,  that  books  were  by  the  luckiest  hit  in- 
vented, to  confound  the  restrictions  of  geography 
and  the  almanac.  In  consequence,  from  the 

51 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

Ptolemies  to  the  Capets,  from  the  twilight  of  a 
spring  dawn  in  Sicily  to  the  uglier  shadow  of 
Montfaucon's  gibbet,  there  intervenes  but  the 
turning  of  a  page,  a  choice  between  Theocritus 
and  Villon.  From  the  Athens  of  Herodotus  to 
the  Versailles  of  St.-Simon,  from  Naishapur  to 
Cranford,  it  is  equally  quick  traveling.  All  times 
and  lands  that  ever  took  the  sun,  indeed,  lie  open, 
equally,  to  the  explorer  by  the  grace  of  Guten- 
berg; and  transportation  into  Greece  or  Rome  or 
Persia  or  Chicago,  equally,  is  the  affair  of  a  mo- 
ment. Then,  too,  the  islands  of  Avalon  and 
Ogygia  and  Theleme  stay  always  accessible,  and 
magic  casements  open  readily  upon  the  surf  of 
Sea-coast  Bohemia.  For  the  armchair  traveler 
alone  enjoys  enfranchisement  of  a  chronology,  and 
of  a  geography,  that  has  escaped  the  wear-and- 
tear  of  ever  actually  existing. 

"  Peregrination  in  the  realms  of  gold  possesses 
also  the  quite  inestimable  advantage  that  therein 
one's  personality  is  contraband.  As  when  Dante 
makes  us  free  of  Hell  and  Heaven,  it  is  on  the 
fixed  condition  of  our  actual  love  and  hate  of 
divers  Renaissance  Italians,  whose  exploits  in  the 
flesh  require  to-day  the  curt  elucidation  of  a  foot- 
note, just  so,  admission  to  those  high  delights 
whereunto  Shelley  conducts  is  purchased  by  ac- 
crediting to  clouds  and  skylarks  —  let  us  sanely 
52 


OF    IDLE    SPECULATIONS    IN    A    LIBRARY 

admit  —  a  temporary  importance  which  we  would 
never  accord  them  unbiased.  The  traveler  has 
for  the  half-hour  exchanged  his  personality  for 
that  of  his  guide :  such  is  the  rule  in  literary  high- 
ways, a  very  necessary  traffic  ordinance :  and  so 
long  as  many  of  us  are,  upon  the  whole,  inferior 
to  Dante  or  Shelley  —  or  Sophocles,  or  Thack- 
eray, or  even  Shakespeare  —  the  change  need  not 
make  entirely  for  loss.  .  .  ." 

Yes,  it  is  lightly  phrased;  but,  after  all,  it  is 
only  another  way  of  confessing  that  his  books  af- 
forded Kennaston  an  avenue  to  forgetfulness  of 
that  fat  pasty  fellow  whom  Kennaston  was 
heartily  tired  of  being.  For  one,  I  find  the  ad- 
mission significant  of  much,  in  view  of  what  befell 
him  afterward. 

And  besides  —  so  Kennaston' s  thoughts  strayed 
at  times  —  these  massed  books,  which  his  prede- 
cessor at  Alcluid  had  acquired  piecemeal  through 
the  term  of  a  long  life,  were  a  part  of  that  pre- 
decessor's personality.  No  other  man  would 
have  gathered  and  have  preserved  precisely  the 
same  books,  and  each  book,  with  varying  force- 
fulness,  had  entered  into  his  predecessor's  mind 

53 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

and  had  tinged  it.  These  parti-colored  books, 
could  one  but  reconstruct  the  mosaic  correctly, 
would  give  a  candid  portrait  of  "your  Uncle 
Henry  in  Lichfield,"  which  would  perhaps  sur- 
prise all  those  who  knew  him  daily  in  the  flesh. 
Of  the  fact  that  these  were  unusual  books  their 
present  owner  and  tentative  explorer  had  no 
doubt  whatever.  They  were  perturbing  books. 

Now  these  books  by  their  pleasant  display  of 
gold-leaf,  soberly  aglow  in  lamplight,  recalled  an 
obscure  association  of  other  tiny  brilliancies;  and 
Felix  Kennaston  recollected  the  bit  of  metal  he 
had  found  that  evening. 

Laid  by  the  lamp,  it  shone  agreeably  as  Ken- 
naston puckered  his  protruding  brows  over  the 
characters  with  which  it  was  inscribed.  So  far 
as  touched  his  chances  of  deciphering  them,  he 
knew  all  foreign  languages  were  to  him  of  almost 
equal  inscrutability.  French  he  could  puzzle  out, 
or  even  Latin,  if  you  gave  him  plenty  of  time  and 
a  dictionary;  but  this  inscription  was  not  in  Roman 
lettering.  He  wished,  with  time-dulled  yearning, 
that  he  had  been  accorded  a  college  educa- 
tion. .  .  . 

54 


IV 

How  There  Was  a  Light  in 
the  Fog 

AS  she  came  toward  him  through  the  fog, 
"  How  annoying  it  is,"  she  was  saying 
plaintively,  "  that  these  moors  are  never 
properly  lighted." 

"  Ah,  but  you  must  not  blame  Ole-Luk-Oie," 
he  protested.  "  It  is  all  the  fault  of  Beatrice 
Cenci.  .  .  ." 

Then  Kennaston  knew  he  had  unwittingly 
spoken  magic  words,  for  at  once,  just  as  he  had 
seen  it  done  in  theaters,  the  girl's  face  was  shown 
him  clearly  in  a  patch  of  roseate  light.  It  was 
the  face  of  Ettarre. 

1  Things  happen  so  in  dreams,"  he  observed. 
"  I  know  perfectly  well  I  am  dreaming,  as  I  have 
very  often  known  before  this  that  I  was  dreaming. 
But  it  was  always  against  some  law  to  tell  the 
people  in  my  nightmares  I  quite  understood  they 
were  not  real  people.  To-day  in  my  daydream, 

55 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

and  here  again  to-night,  there  is  no  such  restric- 
tion; and  lovely  as  you  are,  I  know  that  you  are 
just  a  daughter  of  sub-consciousness  or  of  mem- 
ory or  of  jumpy  nerves  or,  perhaps,  of  an  im- 
properly digested  entree." 

"  No,  I  am  real,  Horvendile  —  but  it  is  I  who 
am  dreaming  you." 

"  I  had  not  thought  to  be  a  part  of  any  woman's 
dream  nowadays.  .  .  .  Why  do  you  call  me  Hor- 
vendile?" 

She  who  bore  the  face  of  Ettarre  pondered  mo- 
mentarily; and  his  heart  moved  with  glad  adora- 
tion. 

"  Now,  by  the  beard  of  the  prophet!  I  do  not 
know,"  the  girl  said,  at  last. 

"  The  name  means  nothing  to  you?  " 

"  I  never  heard  it  before.  But  it  seemed  nat- 
ural, somehow  —  just  as  it  did  when  you  spoke 
of  Ole-Luk-Oie  and  Beatrice  Cenci." 

"  But  Ole-Luk-Oie  is  the  lord  and  master  of  all 
dreams,  of  course.  And  that  furtive  long-dead 
Roman  girl  has  often  troubled  my  dreams. 
When  I  was  a  boy,  you  conceive,  there  was  in  my 
room  at  the  first  boarding-house  in  which  I  can 

56 


HOW  THERE  WAS  A  LIGHT  IN  THE  FOG 

remember  dieting,  a  copy  of  the  Guido  portrait 
of  Beatrice  Cenci  —  a  copy  done  in  oils,  a  worth- 
less daub,  I  suppose.  But  there  was  evil  in  the 
picture  —  a  lurking  devilishness,  which  waited  pa- 
tiently and  alertly  until  I  should  do  what  that 
silent  watcher  knew  I  was  predestined  to  do,  and, 
being  malevolent,  wanted  me  to  do.  I  knew  noth- 
ing then  of  Beatrice  Cenci,  mark  you,  but  when  I 
came  to  learn  her  history  I  thought  the  world  was 
all  wrong  about  her.  That  woman  was  evil, 
whatever  verse-makers  may  have  fabled,  I  thought 
for  a  long  while.  .  .  .  To-day  I  believe  the  evil 
emanated  from  the  person  who  painted  that  par- 
ticular copy.  I  do  not  know  who  that  person  was, 
I  never  shall  know.  But  the  black  magic  of  that 
person's  work  was  very  potent." 

And  Kennaston  looked  about  him  now,  to  find 
fog  everywhere  —  impenetrable  vapors  which 
vaguely  showed  pearl-colored  radiancies  here  and 
there,  but  no  determinable  forms  of  trees  or  of 
houses,  or  of  anything  save  the  face  of  Ettarre, 
so  clearly  discerned  and  so  lovely  in  that  strange 
separate  cloud  of  roseate  light. 

"  Ah,  yes,  those  little  magics  " —  it  was  the  girl 

57 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

who  spoke  — "  those  futile  troubling  necromancies 
that  are  wrought  by  portraits  and  unfamiliar 
rooms  and  mirrors  and  all  time-worn  glittering  ob- 
jects —  by  running  waters  and  the  wind's  per- 
sistency, and  by  lonely  summer  noons  in  forests  — 
how  inconsequently  they  fret  upon  men's  heart- 
strings! " 

"  As  if  some  very  feeble  force  —  say,  a  maimed 
elf  —  were  trying  to  attract  your  attention  ?  Yes, 
I  think  I  understand.  It  is  droll." 

"  And  how  droll,  too,  it  is  how  quickly  we 
communicate  our  thoughts  —  even  though,  if  you 
notice,  you  are  not  really  speaking,  because  your 
lips  are  not  moving  at  all." 

"  No,  they  never  do  in  dreams.  One  never 
seems,  in  fact,  to  use  one's  mouth  —  you  never  ac- 
tually eat  anything,  you  may  also  notice,  in  dreams, 
even  though  food  is  very  often  at  hand.  I  sup- 
pose it  is  because  all  dream  food  is  akin  to  the 
pomegranates  of  Persephone,  so  that  if  you  taste 
it  you  cannot  ever  return  again  to  the  workaday 
world.  .  .  .  But  why,  I  wonder,  are  we  having 
the  same  dream?  — •  it  rather  savors  of  Morphean 

58 


HOW  THERE  WAS  A  LIGHT  IN  THE  FOG 

parsimony,  dorft  you  think,  thus  to  make  one 
nightmare  serve  for  two  people?  Or  perhaps  it 
is  the  bit  of  metal  I  found  this  afternoon  — " 

And  the  girl  nodded.  "  Yes,  it  is  on  account 
of  the  sigil  of  Scoteia.  I  have  the  other  half, 
you  know." 

"What  does  this  mean,  Ettarre — ?"  he  be- 
gan; and  reaching  forward,  was  about  to  touch 
her,  when  the  universe  seemed  to  fold  about  him, 
just  as  a  hand  closes.  .  .  . 


And  Felix  Kennaston  was  sitting  at  the  writing- 
table  in  the  library,  with  a  gleaming  scrap  of  metal 
before  him;  and,  as  the  clock  showed,  it  was  bed- 
time. 

"  Well,  it  is  undoubtedly  quaint  how  dreams 
draw  sustenance  from  half-forgotten  happenings," 
he  reflected;  "  to  think  of  my  recollecting  that 
weird  daub  which  used  to  deface  my  room  in  Fair- 
haven!  I  had  forgotten  Beatrice  entirely.  And 
I  certainly  never  spoke  of  her  to  any  human  being, 
except  of  course  to  Muriel  Allardyce.  .  .  .  But 
I  would  not  be  at  all  surprised  if  I  had  involun- 

59 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

tarily  hypnotized  myself,  sitting  here  staring  at 
this  shiny  piece  of  lead  —  you  read  of  such  cases. 
J  believe  I  will  put  it  away,  to  play  with  again 
sometime." 


60 


Of  Publishing:  With  an 
Unlikely  Appendix 


SO  Kennaston  preserved  this  bit  of  metal. 
"  No  fool  like  an  old  fool,"  his  common- 
sense     testily     assured     him.     But     Felix 
Kennaston's  life  was  rather  barren  of  interests 
nowadays.  .  .  . 

He  thought  no  more  of  his  queer  dream,  for 
a  long  while.  Life  had  gone  on  decorously.  He 
had  completed  The  Audit  at  Storisende,  with  leis- 
ured joy  in  the  task,  striving  to  write  perfectly  of 
beautiful  happenings  such  as  life  did  not  afford. 
There  is  no  denying  that  the  typed  manuscript 
seemed  to  Felix  Kennaston  —  as  he  added  the 
last  touches,  before  expressing  it  to  Dapley  & 
Pildriff  —  to  inaugurate  a  new  era  in  literature. 
Kennaston  was  yet  to  learn  that  publishers  in 
their  business  capacity  have  no  especial  concern 
with  literature.  To  his  bewilderment  he  discov- 
ered that  publishers  seemed  sure  the  merits  of  a 

61 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

book  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  advisability  of 
printing  it.  Herewith  is  appended  a  specimen  or 
two  from  Felix  Kennaston's  correspondence. 

DAPLEY  &  PILDRIFF  — "  We  have  carefully 
read  your  story,  c  The  Audit  at  Storisende,'  which 
you  kindly  submitted  to  us.  It  is  needless  for  us 
to  speak  of  the  literary  quality  of  the  story:  it  is 
in  fact  exquisitely  done,  and  would  delight  a  very 
limited  circle  of  readers  trained  to  appreciate  such 
delicate  productions.  But  that  class  of  readers  is 
necessarily  small,  and  the  general  reader  would, 
we  fear,  fail  to  recognize  the  book's  merit  and  be 
attracted  to  it.  For  this  reason  we  do  not  feel  — 
and  we  regret  to  confess  it  —  that  the  publication 
of  this  book  would  be  a  wise  business  enterprise 
for  us  to  undertake.  We  wish  that  we  could,  in 
justice  to  you  and  ourselves,  see  the  matter  in  an- 
other light.  We  are  returning  the  manuscript  to 
you,  and  we  remain,  with  appreciation  of  your 
courtesy,  etc." 

PAIGE  TICKNOR'S  SONS  — "We  have  given 
very  careful  consideration  to  your  story,  *  The 
Audit  at  Storisende,'  which  you  kindly  submitted 
to  us.  We  were  much  interested  in  this  romance, 
for  it  goes  without  saying  that  it  is  marked  with 
high  literary  quality.  But  we  feel  that  it  would 
62 


OF          PUBLISHING 

not  appeal  with  force  and  success  to  the  general 
reader.  Its  appeal,  we  think,  would  be  to  the 
small  class  of  cultured  readers,  and  therefore  its 
publication  would  not  be  attended  with  commer- 
cial success.  Therefore  in  your  interest,  as  well 
as  our  own,  we  feel  that  we  must  give  an  unfavor- 
able decision  upon  the  question  of  publication. 
Naturally  we  regret  to  be  forced  to  that  conclu- 
sion, for  the  work  is  one  which  would  be  credit- 
able to  any  publisher's  list.  We  return  the  manu- 
script by  express,  with  our  appreciation  of  your 
courtesy  in  giving  us  the  opportunity  of  consider- 
ing it,  and  are,  etc." 

And  so  it  was  with  The  Gayvery  Company,  and 
with  Leeds,  McKibble  &  Todd,  and  with  Stuy- 
vesant  &  Brothers.  Unanimously  they  united  to 
praise  and  to  return  the  manuscript.  And  Ken- 
naston  began  reluctantly  to  suspect  that,  for  all 
their  polite  phrases  about  literary  excellence,  his 
romance  must,  somehow,  be  not  quite  in  conso- 
nance with  the  standards  of  that  person  who  is, 
after  all,  the  final  arbiter  of  literature,  and  to 
whom  these  publishers  very  properly  deferred,  as 
"  the  general  reader."  And  Kennaston  wondered 
if  it  would  not  be  well  for  him,  also,  to  study  the 

63 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

all-important  and  exigent  requirements  of  "  the 
general  reader." 

Kennaston  turned  to  the  publishers'  advertise- 
ments. Dapley  &  Pildriff  at  that  time  were  urg- 
ing every  one  to  read  White  Sepulchers,  the  au- 
thor of  which  had  made  public  the  momentous 
discovery  that  all  churchgoers  were  not  immacu- 
late persons.  Paige  Ticknor's  Sons  were  an- 
nouncing a  new  edition  of  The  Apostates,  a 
scathing  arraignment  of  plutocratic  iniquities, 
which  was  heralded  as  certain  to  sear  the  soul  to 
its  core,  more  than  rival  Thackeray,  and  turn  our 
highest  social  circles  inside  out.  Then  the  Gay- 
very  Company  offered  Through  the  Transom,  a 
daring  study  of  "  feminism,"  compiled  to  all  ap- 
pearance under  rather  novel  conditions,  inasmuch 
as  the  brilliant  young  author  had,  according  to  the 
advertisements,  written  every  sentence  with  his 
jaws  set  and  his  soul  on  fire.  The  majority  of 
Leeds,  McKibble  &  Todd's  adjectives  were  de- 
voted to  Sarah's  Secret,  the  prize-winner  in  the 
firm's  $15,000  contest  —  a  "sprightly  romance 
of  the  greenwood,"  whose  undoubted  aim,  Ken- 
naston deduced  from  tentative  dips  into  its  mean- 

64 


OF         PUBLISHING 

dering  balderdash,  was  to  become  the  most  sought- 
after  book  in  all  institutes  devoted  to  care  of  the 
feeble-minded.  And  Stuyvesant  &  Brothers  were 
superlatively  acclaiming  The  Silent  Brotherhood, 
the  latest  masterpiece  of  a  pornographically 
gifted  genius,  who  had  edifyingly  shown  that  he 
ranked  religion  above  literature,  by  retiring  from 
the  ministry  to  write  novels. 

Kennaston  laughed  —  upon  which  side  of  the 
mouth,  it  were  too  curious  to  inquire.  Momen- 
tarily he  thought  of  printing  the  book  at  his  own 
expense.  But  here  the  years  of  poverty  had  left 
indelible  traces.  Kennaston  had  too  often  walked 
because  he  had  not  carfare,  for  a  dollar  ever 
again  to  seem  to  him  an  inconsiderable  matter. 
Comfortably  reassured  as  to  pecuniary  needs  for 
the  future,  he  had  not  the  least  desire  to  control 
more  money  than  actually  showed  in  his  bank- 
balances:  but,  even  so,  he  often  smiled  to  note 
how  unwillingly  he  spent  money.  So  now  he 
shrugged,  and  sent  out  his  loved  romance  again. 


An  unlikely  thing  happened:  the  book  was  ac- 
cepted for  publication.     The  Baxon-Muir  Com- 

65 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

pany  had  no  prodigious  faith  in  The  Audit  at 
Storlsende,  as  a  commercial  venture;  but  their 
"  readers,"  in  common  with  most  of  the  "  read- 
ers "  for  the  firms  who  had  rejected  it,  were  not 
lacking  in  discernment  of  its  merits  as  an  admir- 
able piece  of  writing.  And  the  more  optimistic 
among  them  protested  even  to  foresee  a  possibil- 
ity of  the  book's  selling.  The  vast  public  that 
reads  for  pastime,  they  contended,  was  beginning 
to  grow  a  little  tired  of  being  told  how  bad  was 
this-or-that  economic  condition:  and  pretty  much 
everything  had  been  "  daringly  exposed,"  to  the 
point  of  weariness,  from  the  inconsistencies  of  our 
clergy  to  the  uncleanliness  of  our  sausage.  In  ad- 
dition, they  considered  the  surprising  success  of 
Mr.  Marmaduke  Fennel's  eighteenth-century 
story,  For  Love  of  a  Lady,  as  compared  with  the 
more  moderate  sales  of  Miss  Elspeth  Lancaster's 
In  Scarlet  Sidon,  that  candid  romance  of  the 
brothel;  deducing  therefrom  that  the  "  gadzooks  " 
and  "  by'r  lady "  type  of  reading-matter  was 
ready  to  revive  in  vogue.  At  all  events,  the 
Baxon-Muir  Company,  after  holding  a  rather  un- 
usual number  of  conferences,  declared  their  will- 
66 


OF          PUBLISHING 

ingness  to  publish  this  book;  and  in  due  course 
they  did  publish  it. 

There  were  before  this,  however,  for  Kennas- 
ton  many  glad  hours  of  dabbling  with  proof- 
sheets:  the  tale  seemed  so  different,  and  so  infer- 
nally good,  in  print.  Kennaston  never  in  his  life 
found  any  other  playthings  comparable  to  those 
first  wide-margined  "  galley  proofs "  of  The 
Audit  at  Storlsende.  Here  was  the  word,  vexa- 
tiously  repeated  within  three  lines,  which  must  be 
replaced  by  a  synonym;  and  the  clause  which, 
when  transposed,  made  the  whole  sentence  gain 
in  force  and  comeliness;  and  the  curt  sentence 
whose  addition  gave  clarity  to  the  paragraph, 
much  as  a  pinch  of  alum  clears  turbid  water;  and 
the  vaguely  unsatisfactory  adjective,  for  which  a 
jet  of  inspiration  suggested  a  substitute,  of  vastly 
different  meaning,  in  the  light  of  whose  inevitable 
aptness  you  marveled  over  your  preliminary  ob- 
tuseness:  —  all  these  slight  triumphs,  one  by  one, 
first  gladdened  Kennaston's  labor  and  tickled  his 
self-complacency.  He  could  see  no  fault  in  the 
book. 

His  publishers  had  clearer  eyes.     His  Preface, 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

for  one  matter,  they  insisted  on  transposing  to  the 
rear  of  the  volume,  where  it  now  figures  as  the 
book's  tolerably  famous  Colophon  —  that  curi- 
ous exposition  of  Kennaston's  creed  as  artist. 
Then,  for  a  title,  The  Audit  at  Storisende  was 
editorially  adjudged  abominable :  people  would 
not  know  how  to  pronounce  Storisende,  and  in 
consequence  would  hold  back  from  discussing  the 
romance  or  even  asking  for  it  at  book-dealers. 
Men  Who  Loved  Ettarre  was  Kennaston's  ensu- 
ing suggestion;  but  the  Baxon-Muir  Company 
showed  no  fixed  confidence  in  their  patrons'  abil- 
ity to  pronounce  Ettarre,  either.  Would  it  not 
be  possible,  they  inquired,  to  change  the  heroine's 
name?  —  and  Kennaston  assented.  Thus  it  was 
that  in  the  end  his  book  came  to  be  called  Men 
Who  Loved  Alison. 

But  to  Kennaston  her  name  stayed  always  Et- 
tarre. .  .  . 

The  book  was  delivered  to  the  world,  which  re- 
ceived the  gift  without  excitement.  The  book 
was  delivered  to  reviewers,  who  found  in  it  a 
well-intentioned  echo  of  Mr.  Maurice  Hewlett's 
68 


OF          PUBLISHING 

earlier  mediaeval  tales.     And  there  for  a  month 
or  some  six  weeks,  the  matter  rested. 

Then  one  propitious  morning  an  indignant  gen- 
tlewoman in  Brooklyn  wrote  to  The  New  York 
Sphere  a  letter  which  was  duly  printed  in  that  jour- 
nal's widely  circulated  Sunday  supplement,  The 
Literary  Masterpieces  of  This  Week,  to  denounce 
the  loathsome  and  depraved  indecency  of  the  nine- 
teenth and  twentieth  chapters,  in  which  —  while 
treating  of  Sir  Guiron's  imprisonment  in  the  Sa- 
cred Grove  of  Caer  Idryn,  and  the  worship  ac- 
corded there  to  the  sigil  of  Scoteia  —  Kennaston 
had  touched  upon  some  of  the  perverse  refine- 
ments of  antique  sexual  relations.  The  following 
week  brought  forth  a  full  page  of  letters.  Two 
of  these,  as  Kennaston  afterward  learned,  were 
contributed  by  the  "  publicity  man  "  of  the  Baxon- 
Muir  Company,  and  all  arraigned  obscenities 
which  Kennaston  could  neither  remember  or  on 
re-reading  his  book  discover.  Later  in  this  jour- 
nal, as  in  other  newspapers,  appeared  still  more 
denunciations.  An  up-to-the-minute  bishop  ex- 
postulated from  the  pulpit  against  the  story's  vi- 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

cious  tendencies,  demanding  that  it  be  suppressed. 
Thereafter  it  was  no  longer  on  sale  in  the  large 
department-stores  alone,  but  was  equally  procur- 
able at  all  the  bookstands  in  hotels  and  railway 
stations.  Even  the  author's  acquaintances  began 
to  read  it.  And  the  Delaunays  (then  at  the 
height  of  their  vogue  as  exponents  of  the  "  new  " 
dances)  introduced  u  the  Alison  amble";  and 
from  Tampa  to  Seattle,  in  certain  syndicated  car- 
toons of  generally  appealing  idiocy,  newspaper 
readers  were  privileged  to  see  one  hero  of  the  se- 
ries knock  the  other  heels  over  head  with  a  copy 
of  Kennaston's  romance.  And  women  wore  the 
"  Alison  aigrette  "  for  a  whole  season;  and  a  new 
brand  of  cheap  tobacco  christened  in  her  honor 
had  presently  made  her  name  at  least  familiar  in 
saloons.  Men  Who  Loved  Alison  became,  in 
fine,  the  novel  of  the  hour.  It  was  one  of  those 
rare  miracles  such  as  sometimes  palm  off  a  well- 
written  book  upon  the  vast  public  that  reads  for 
pastime. 

And  shortly  afterward  Mr.  Booth  Tarkington 
published  another  of  his  delightful  romances :  one 
forgets  at  this  distance  of  time  just  which  it  was: 
70 


OF         PUBLISHING 

but,  like  all  the  others,  it  was  exquisitely  done, 
and  sold  neck  and  neck  with  Men  Who  Loved  Ali- 
son; so  that  for  a  while  it  looked  almost  as  if  the 
American  reading  public  was  coming  to  condone 
adroit  and  careful  composition. 

But  presently  the  advertising  columns  of  maga- 
zines and  newspapers  were  heralding  the  year's 
vernal  output  of  enduring  masterworks  in  the  field 
of  fiction:  and  readers  were  again  assured  that 
the  great  American  novel  had  just  been  published 
at  last,  by  any  number  of  persons :  and  so,  the  au- 
tumnal predecessors  of  these  new  chefs  d'ceuvre 
passed  swiftly  into  oblivion,  via  the  brief  respite 
of  a  "  popular "  edition.  And  naturally,  Ken- 
naston's  romance  was  forgotten,  by  all  save  a  few 
pensive  people.  Some  of  them  had  found  in  this 
volume  food  for  curious  speculation. 

That,  however,  is  a  matter  to  be  taken  up  later. 


VI 

Suggesting  Themes  of 
Universal  Appeal 


SO  Felix  Kennaston  saw  his  dream  vulgar- 
ized, made  a  low  byword;  and  he  con- 
templated this  travestying,  as  the  cream  of 
a  sardonic  jest,  with  urbanity.  Indeed,  that 
hour  of  notoriety  seemed  not  without  its  pleasant 
features  to  Felix  Kennaston,  who  had  all  a  poet's 
ordinary  appetite  for  flattery.  Besides,  it  was 
droll  to  read  the  "  literary  notes  "  which  the 
Baxon-Muir  people  were  industriously  dissemi- 
nating, by  means  of  the  daily  journals,  concern- 
ing Felix  Kennaston's  personality,  ancestry,  ac- 
complishments, recreations  and  preferences  in 
diet.  And  then,  in  common  with  the  old  woman 
famed  in  nursery  rhyme,  he  was  very  often  wont 
to  observe,  "  But,  lawk  a  mercy  on  me !  this  is 
none  of  I!  " 

It  was  droll,  too,  to  be  asked  for  autographs, 
lectures,  and  for  donations  of  "  your  wonderful 
72 


THEMES       OF       UNIVERSAL       APPEAL 

novel."  It  was  droll  to  receive  letters  from  re- 
mote mysterious  persons,  who  had  read  his  book, 
and  had  liked  it,  or  else  had  disliked  it  to  the  point 
of  being  goaded  into  epistolary  remonstrance,  sar- 
casm, abuse,  and  (as  a  rule)  erratic  spelling.  It 
troubled  Kennaston  that  only  riffraff  seemed  to 
have  read  his  book,  so  far  as  he  could  judge  from 
these  unsolicited  communications;  and  that  such 
people  of  culture  and  education  as  might  have 
been  thrilled  by  it  —  all  people  whose  opinions 
he  might  conceivably  value  —  seemed  never  to 
write  to  authors.  .  .  . 

And  finally,  it  was  droll  to  watch  his  wife's  re- 
ception of  the  book.  To  Kennaston  his  wife 
stayed  always  a  not  unfriendly  mystery.  She 
now  could  not  but  be  a  little  taken  aback  by  this 
revelation  of  his  abilities,  he  reflected  —  with 
which  she  had  lived  so  long  without,  he  felt,  ap- 
preciation of  them  — •  but  certainly  she  would 
never  admit  to  either  fact.  He  doubted  very 
much  if  Kathleen  would  ever  actually  read  Men 
Who  Loved  Alison;  on  various  pretexts  she  had 
deferred  the  pleasure,  and  seemed,  with  per- 
verted notions  of  humor,  to  esteem  it  a  joke  that 

73 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

she  alone  had  not  read  the  book  of  which  every- 
body was  talking.  Such  was  not  Kennaston's 
idea  of  humor,  or  of  wifely  interest.  But  Kath- 
leen dipped  into  the  volume  here  and  there;  and 
she  assuredly  read  all  the  newspaper-notices  sent 
in  by  the  clipping-bureau.  These  she  considered 
with  profound  seriousness. 

"  I  have  been  thinking  —  you  ought  to  make  a 
great  deal  out  of  your  next  novel,"  she  said,  one 
morning,  over  her  grapefruit;  and  the  former 
poet  wondered  why,  in  heaven's  name,  it  should 
matter  to  her  whether  or  not  the  marketing  of  his 
dreams  earned  money,  when  they  had  already 
a  competence.  But  women  were  thus  fash- 
ioned. .  .  . 

"  You  ought  to  do  something  more  up-to-date, 
though,  Felix,  something  that  deals  with  real 
life  — " 

"  Ah,  but  I  don't  particularly  care  to  write 
about  a  subject  of  which  I  am  so  totally  ignorant, 
dear.  Besides,  it  isn't  for  you  to  fleer  and  gibe 
at  a  masterpiece  which  you  never  read,"  he  airily 
informed  her. 

"  I  am  saving  it  up  for  next  summer,  Felix, 
74 


THEMES       OF       UNIVERSAL       APPEAL 

when  I  will  have  a  chance  to  give  every  word  of 
it  the  reverence  it  deserves.  I  really  don't  have 
any  time  for  reading  nowadays.  There  is  always 
something  more  important  that  has  to  be  attended 
to  —  For  instance,  the  gasoline  engine  isn't 
working  again,  and  I  had  to  'phone  in  town  for 
Slaytor  to  send  a  man  out  to-day,  to  see  what  is 
the  matter  this  time." 

"  And  it  is  messy  things  like  that  you  want  me 
to  write  about!"  he  exclaimed.  "About  the 
gasoline  engine  going  on  another  strike,  and 
Drake's  forgetting  to  tell  you  we  were  all  out  of 
sugar  until  late  Saturday  night!  Never  mind, 
Mrs.  Kennaston !  you  will  be  sorry  for  this,  and 
you  will  weep  the  bitter  tears  of  unavailing  re- 
pentance, some  day,  when  you  ride  in  the  front 
automobile  with  the  Governor  to  the  unveiling  of 
my  various  monuments,  and  have  fallen  into  the 
anecdotage  of  a  great  man's  widow."  He  spoke 
lightly,  but  he  was  reflecting  that  in  reality  Kath- 
leen did  not  read  his  book  because  she  did  not  re- 
gard any  of  his  doings  very  seriously.  "  Isn't  this 
the  third  time  this  weelc  we  have  had  herring  for 
breakfast?  "  he  inquired,  pleasantly.  "  I  think 

75 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

I  will  wait  and  let  them  scramble  me  a  couple  of 
eggs.  It  is  evidently  a  trifle  that  has  escaped 
your  attention,  my  darling,  during  our  long  years 
of  happy  married  life,  that  I  don't  eat  herring. 
But  of  course,  just  as  you  say,  you  have  a  num- 
ber of  much  more  important  things  than  husbands 
to  think  about.  I  dislike  having  to  put  any  one 
to  any  extra  trouble  on  my  account ;  but  as  it  hap- 
pens, I  have  a  lot  of  work  to  do  this  morning,  and 
I  cannot  very  well  get  through  it  on  an  empty 
stomach.'* 

"  We  haven't  had  it  since  Saturday,  Felix." 
Then  wearily,  to  the  serving-girl,  "  Cora,  see  if 
Mr.  Kennaston  can  have  some  eggs.  ...  I 
wish  you  wouldn't  upset  things  so,  Felix.  Your 
coffee  will  get  stone-cold;  and  it  is  hard  enough  to 
keep  servants  as  it  is.  Besides,  you  know  per- 
fectly well  to-day  is  Thursday,  and  the  library 
has  to  be  thorough-cleaned." 

"  That  means  of  course  I  am  to  be  turned  out- 
of-doors  and  forced  to  waste  a  whole  day  some- 
where in  town.  It  is  quite  touching  how  my  crea- 
ture comforts  are  catered  to  in  this  house!  " 

And  Kathleen  began  to  laugh,  ruefully.    "  You 


THEMES       OF       UNIVERSAL       APPEAL 

are  just  a  great  big  baby,  Felix.  You  are  sulking 
and  swelling  up  like  a  frog,  because  you  think  I 
don't  appreciate  what  a  wonderful  husband  I  have 
and  what  a  wonderful  book  he  has  written." 

Then  Kennaston  began  to  laugh  also.  He 
knew  that  what  she  said  was  tolerably  true,  even 
to  the  batrachian  simile.  "  When  you  insisted  on 
adopting  me,  dear,  you  ought  to  have  realized 
what  you  were  letting  yourself  in  for." 

" —  And  I  do  think,"  Kathleen  went  on,  evinc- 
ing that  conviction  with  which  she  as  a  rule  re- 
peated other  people's  remarks  — "  that  you  ought 
to  make  your  next  book  something  that  deals  with 
real  life.  Men  Who  Loved  Alison  is  beautifully 
written  and  all  that,  but,  exactly  as  the  Tucson 
Pioneer  said,  it  is  really  just  colorful  soapbubbly 


nonsense." 


"  Ah,  but  is  it  unadulterated  nonsense,  Kath- 
leen, that  somewhere  living  may  be  a  uniformly 
noble  transaction?"  he  debated — "and  human 
passions  never  be  in  a  poor  way  to  find  expression 
with  adequate  speech  and  action? "  Pleased 
with  the  phrase,  and  feeling  in  a  better  temper,  he 
began  to  butter  a  roll. 

77 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

"  I  don't  know  about  that;  but,  in  any  event, 
people  prefer  to  read  about  the  life  they  are  fa- 
miliar with/' 

"  You  touch  on  a  disheartening  truth.  People 
never  want  to  be  told  anything  they  do  not  believe 
already.  Yet  I  quite  fail  to  see  why,  in  books  or 
elsewhere,  any  one  should  wish  to  be  reminded  of 
what  human  life  is  actually  like.  For  living  is 
the  one  art  in  which  mankind  has  never  achieved 
distinction.  It  is  perhaps  an  obscure  sense  of 
this  that  makes  us  think  the  begetting  of  mankind 
an  undiscussable  subject,  and  death  a  sublime  and 
edifying  topic." 

"Yes — ?  I  dare  say,"  Kathleen  assented 
vaguely.  "  This  herring  is  really  very  good, 
Felix.  I  think  you  would  like  it,  if  you  just  had 
not  made  up  your  mind  to  be  stubborn  about  it  — " 
Then  she  spoke  with  new  animation:  "  Felix, 
Margaret  Woods  was  in  Louvet's  yesterday 
morning,  having  her  hair  done  for  a  dinner  they 
gave  the  railroad  crowd  last  night,  and  of  all  the 
faded  washed-out  looking  people  I  ever  saw  — ! 
And  I  can  remember  her  having  that  hideous 
brown  dress  long  before  she  was  married.  Of 

78 


THEMES       OP       UNIVERSAL       APPEAL 

course,  it  doesn't  make  any  difference  to  me  that 
she  didn't  see  fit  to  invite  us.  She  was  one  of 
your  friends,  not  mine.  I  was  only  thinking  that, 
since  she  always  pretended  to  be  so  fond  of  you, 
it  does  seem  curious  the  way  we  are  invariably 
left  out." 

So  Kennaston  did  not  embroider  verbally  his 
theme  —  of  Living  Adequately  —  as  he  had  felt 
himself  in  vein  to  do  could  he  have  found  a  lis- 
tener. 

"  Some  day,"  he  ruefully  reflected,  "  I  shall  cer- 
tainly write  a  paper  upon  The  Lost  Art  of  Con- 
versing with  One's  Wife.  Its  appeal,  I  think, 
would  be  universal." 

Then  his  eggs  came.  .  .  . 


79 


VII 

Peculiar  Conduct  of  a 
Personage 


SHORTLY  afterward  befell  a  queer  incident. 
Kennaston,  passing  through  a  famed  city, 
lunched  with  a  personage  who  had  been 
pleased  to  admire  Men  Who  Loved  Alison,  and 
whose  remunerative  admiration  had  been  skilfully 
trumpeted  in  the  public  press  by  Kennaston's  pub- 
lishers. 

There  were  some  ten  others  in  the  party,  and 
Kennaston  found  it  droll  enough  to  be  sitting  at 
table  with  them.  The  lean  pensive  man  —  with 
hair  falling  over  his  forehead  in  a  neatly-clipped 
"  bang,"  such  as  custom  restricts  to  children  — 
had  probably  written  that  morning,  in  his  official 
capacity,  to  innumerable  potentates.  That  hand- 
some bluff  old  navy-officer  was  a  national  hero: 
he  would  rank  in  history  with  Perry  and  John  Paul 
Jones;  yet  here  he  sat,  within  arms'-reach,  prosai- 
cally complaining  of  unseasonable  weather.  That 
80 


PECULIAR  CONDUCT  OF  A  PERSONAGE 

bearded  man,  rubicund  and  monstrous  as  to  nose, 
was  perhaps  the  most  powerful,  as  he  was  cer- 
tainly the  most  wealthy,  person  inhabiting  flesh; 
and  it  was  rumored,  in  those  Arcadian  days,  that 
kingdoms  did  not  presume  to  go  to  war  without 
securing  the  consent  of  this  financier. 

And  that  exquisitely  neat  fellow,  looking  like  a 
lad  unconvincingly  made-up  for  an  octogenarian 
in  amateur  theatricals,  was  the  premier  of  the 
largest  province  in  the  world:  his  thin-featured 
neighbor  was  an  aeronaut  —  at  this  period  really 
a  rara  avis  —  and  went  above  the  clouds  to  get 
his  livelihood,  just  as  ordinary  people  went  to 
banks  and  offices.  And  chief  of  all,  their  multi- 
farious host  —  the  personage,  as  one  may  dis- 
creetly call  him  —  had  left  unattempted  scarcely 
any  role  in  the  field  of  human  activities :  as  ranch- 
man, statesman,  warrior,  historian,  editor,  ex- 
plorer, athlete,  coiner  of  phrases,  and  re-discov- 
erer of  the  Decalogue,  impartially,  he  had  labored 
to  make  the  world  a  livelier  place  of  residence; 
and  already  he  was  the  pivot  of  as  many  legends 
as  Charlemagne  or  Arthur. 

The  famous  navy-officer,  as  has  been  said,  was 

81 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

complaining  of  the  weather.  "  The  seasons  have 
changed  so,  since  I  can  remember.  We  seem  to 
go  straight  from  winter  into  summer  nowadays." 

"  It  has  been  rather  unseasonable,"  assented  the 
financier;  "but  then  you  always  feel  the  heat  so 
much  more  during  the  first  few  hot  days." 

"  Besides,"  came  the  judicious  comment,  "  it 
has  not  been  the  heat  which  was  so  oppressive  this 
morning,  I  think,  as  the  great  amount  of  humidity 
in  the  air." 

"  Yes,  it  is  most  unpleasant  —  makes  your 
clothes  stick  to  you  so." 

"  Ah,  but  don't  you  find,  now,"  asked  the  pre- 
mier gaily,  "  that  looking  at  the  thermometer 
tends  to  make  you  feel,  really,  much  more  uncom- 
fortable than  if  you  stayed  uninformed  as  to  pre- 
cisely how  hot  it  was?  " 

"  Well !  where  ignorance  is  bliss  it  is  folly  to  be 
wise,  as  I  remember  to  have  seen  stated  some- 
where." 

"  By  George,  though,  it  is  wonderful  how  true 
are  many  of  those  old  sayings !  "  observed  the  per- 
sonage. ;<  We  assume  we  are  much  wiser  than 
82 


PECULIAR  CONDUCT  OF  A  PERSONAGE 

our  fathers :  but  I  doubt  if  we  really  are,  in  the  big 
things  that  count." 

"  In  fact,  I  have  often  wondered  what  George 
Washington,  for  example,  would  think  of  the  re- 
public he  helped  to  found,  if  he  could  see  it  nowa- 
days." 

"  He  would  probably  find  it  very  different  from 
what  he  imagined  it  would  be." 

;<  Why,  he  would  probably  turn  in  his  grave,  at 
some  of  our  newfangled  notions  —  such  as  pro- 
hibition and  equal  suffrage." 

"  Oh,  well,  all  sensible  people  know,  of  course, 
that  the  trouble  with  prohibition  is  that  it  does  not 
prohibit,  and  that  woman's  place  is  the  home,  not 
in  the  mire  of  politics." 

'  That  is  admirably  put,  sir,  if  you  will  permit 
me  to  say  so.  Still,  there  is  a  great  deal  to  be  said 
on  both  sides." 

"  And  after  all,  is  there  not  a  greater  menace 
to  the  ideals  of  Washington  and  Jefferson  in  the 
way  our  present  laws  tend  uniformly  to  favor  rich 
people?" 

"  There  you  have  it,  sir  —  to-day  we  punish  the 

83 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

poor  man  for  doing  what  the  rich  man  does  with 
entire  impunity,  only  on  a  larger  scale." 

"  By  George,  there  are  many  of  our  so-called 
captains  of  industry  who,  if  the  truth  were  told, 
and  a  shorter  and  uglier  word  were  not  unper- 
missible,  are  little  better  than  malefactors  of  great 
wealth." 

This  epigram,  however  heartily  admired,  was 
felt  by  many  of  the  company  to  be  a  bit  daring  in 
the  presence  of  the  magnate:  and  the  lean  secre- 
tary spoke  hastily,  or  at  any  rate,  in  less  leisurely 
tones  than  usual : 

"  After  all,  money  is  not  everything.  The 
richest  people  are  not  always  the  happiest,  in  spite 
of  their  luxury." 

"  You  gentlemen  can  take  it  from  me,"  asserted 
the  aeronaut,  "  that  many  poor  people  get  a  lot 
of  pleasure  out  of  life." 

"  Now,  really  though,  that  reminds  me  —  chil- 
dren are  very  close  observers,  and,  as  you  may 
have  noticed,  they  ask  the  most  remarkable  ques- 
tions. My  little  boy  asked  me,  only  last  Tuesday, 
why  poor  people  are  always  so  polite  and  kind  — " 

"  Well,  little  pitchers  have  big  ears  — " 
84 


PECULIAR  CONDUCT  OF  A  PERSONAGE 

"  What  you  might  call  a  chip  of  the  old  block, 
eh?  —  so  that  mighty  little  misses  him?  " 

"  I  may  be  prejudiced,  but  I  thought  it  pretty 
good,  coming  from  a  kid  of  six  — " 

"  And  it  is  perfectly  true,  gentlemen  —  the  poor 
are  kind  to  each  other.  Now,  I  believe  just  be- 
ing kind  makes  you  happier  — " 

"  And  I  often  think  that  is  a  better  sort  of  re- 
ligion than  just  dressing  up  in  your  best  clothes 
and  going  to  church  regularly  on  Sundays  — " 

'  That  is  a  very  true  thought,"  another  chimed 
in. 

"  And  expressed,  upon  my  word,  with  admir- 
able clarity  — " 

"  Oh,  whatever  pretended  pessimists  in  search 
of  notoriety  may  say,  most  people  are  naturally 
kind,  at  heart  — " 

"  I  would  put  it  that  Christianity,  in  spite  of  the 
carping  sneers  of  science  so-called,  has  led  us  once 
for  all  to  recognize  the  vast  brotherhood  of 
man  — " 

"  So  that,  really,  the  world  gets  better  every 
day—" 

"  We  have  quite  abolished  war,  for  instance  — " 

85 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

"  My  dear  sir,  were  there  nothing  else,  and 
even  putting  aside  the  outraged  sentiments  of 
civilized  humanity,  another  great  or  prolonged 
war  between  any  two  of  the  leading  nations  is  un- 
thinkable — " 

"For  the  simple  reason,  gentlemen,  that  we 
have  perfected  our  fighting  machines  to  such  an 
extent  that  the  destruction  involved  would  be  too 
frightful  — " 

"  Then,  too,  we  are  improving  the  automobile 
to  such  an  extent  — " 

"  Oh,  in  the  end  it  will  inevitably  supplant  the 
horse  — " 

"  It  seems  almost  impossible  to  realize  how  we 
ever  got  along  without  the  automobile  — " 

"  Do  you  know,  I  would  not  be  surprised  if 
some  day  horses  were  exhibited  in  museums  — " 

"  As  rare  and  nearly  extinct  animals?  Come, 
now,  that  is  pretty  good  — " 

"  And  electricity  is,  as  one  might  say,  just  in 
its  infancy — " 

"  The  telephone,  for  instance  —  our  ancestors 
would  not  have  believed  in  the  possibilities  of  such 
a  thing — " 
86 


PECULIAR  CONDUCT  OF  A  PERSONAGE 

"  And,  by  George,  they  talk  of  giving  an  entire 
play  with  those  moving-picture  machines  —  acting 
the  whole  thing  out,  you  know." 

"  Oh,  yes,  we  live  in  the  biggest,  brainiest  age 
the  world  has  ever  known  — " 

"  And  America  is  going  to  be  the  greatest  na- 
tion in  it,  before  very  long,  commercially  and  in 
every  way  .  .  ." 

So  the  talk  flowed  on,  with  Felix  Kennaston  con- 
tributing very  little  thereto.  Indeed,  Felix  Ken- 
naston, the  dreamer,  was  rather  ill-at-ease  among 
these  men  of  action,  and  listened  to  their  observa- 
tions with  perturbed  attention.  He  sat  among 
the  great  ones  of  earth  —  not  all  of  them  the  very 
greatest,  of  course,  but  each  a  person  of  quite  re- 
spectable importance.  It  was  the  sort  of  gather- 
ing that  in  boyhood  —  and  in  later  life  also,  for 
that  matter  —  he  had  foreplanned  to  thrill  and 
dazzle,  as  he  perfectly  recollected.  But  now, 
with  the  opportunity,  he  somehow  could  not  think 
of  anything  quite  suitable  to  say  —  of  anything 
which  would  at  once  do  him  justice  and  be  admir- 
ingly received. 

Therefore  he  attempted  to  even  matters  by  as- 

87 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

suring  himself  that  the  talk  of  these  efficient  peo- 
ple was  lacking  in  brilliance  and  real  depth,  and 
expressed  sentiments  which,  microscopically 
viewed,  did  not  appear  to  be  astoundingly  orig- 
inal. If  these  had  been  less  remarkable  persons 
he  would  have  thought  their  conversation  almost 
platitudinous.  And  not  one  o£  these  much-talked- 
about  men,  whatever  else  he  might  have  done, 
could  have  written,  Men  Who  Loved  Alison! 
Kennaston  cherished  that  reflection  as  he  sedately 
partook  of  a  dish  he  recollected  to  have  seen  de- 
scribed, on  menu  cards,  as  "  Hungarian  goulash  " 
and  sipped  sherry  of  no  very  extraordinary 
flavor.  .  .  . 

He  was  to  remember  how  plain  the  fare  was, 
and  more  than  once,  was  to  refer  to  this  meal  — 
quite  casually  —  beginning  "  That  reminds  me  of 
what  Such-an-one  said  once,  when  I  was  lunching 
with  him,"  or  perhaps,  "  The  last  time  I  lunched 
with  So-and-so,  I  remember  — "  With  such 
gambits  he  was  able,  later  on,  to  introduce  to  us  of 
Lichfield  several  anecdotes  which,  if  rather  point- 
less, were  at  least  garnished  with  widely-known 
names. 
88 


PECULIAR  CONDUCT  OF  A  PERSONAGE 

There  was  a  Cabinet  meeting  that  afternoon, 
and  luncheon  ended,  the  personage  wasted  scant 
time  in  dismissing  his  guests. 

"  It  has  been  a  very  great  pleasure  to  meet 
you,  Mr.  Kennaston,"  quoth  the  personage, 
wringing  Kennaston's  hand. 

Kennaston  suitably  gave  him  to  understand  that 
they  shared  ecstasy  in  common. 

'  Those  portions  of  your  book  relating  to  the 
sigil  of  Scoteia  struck  me  as  being  too  explicit," 
the  personage  continued,  bluffly,  but  in  lowered 
tones.  The  two  stood  now,  beneath  a  great 
stuffed  elk's  head,  a  little  apart  from  the  others. 
"  Do  you  think  it  was  quite  wise?  I  seem  to  re- 
call a  phrase  —  about  birds  — " 

But  Kennaston's  thoughts  were  vaguely  dental. 
And  there  is  no  denying  Kennaston  was  astounded. 
Nor  was  he  less  puzzled  when,  as  if  in  answer  to 
Kennaston's  bewildered  look,  the  personage  pro- 
duced from  his  waistcoat  pocket  a  small  square 
mirror,  which  he  half-exhibited,  but  retained 
secretively  in  the  palm  of  his  hand.  "  Yes,  the 
hurt  may  well  be  two-fold  —  I  am  pre-supposing 
that,  as  a  country-gentleman,  you  have  raised 

8'9 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

white  pigeons,  Mr.  Kennaston?"  he  said,  mean- 
ingly. 

"  Why,  no,  they  keep  up  such  a  maddening 
cooing  and  purring  on  warm  days,  and  drum  so  on 
tin  roofs" — Kennaston  stammered — "  that  I 
long  ago  lost  patience  with  the  birds  of  Venus, 
whatever  the  tincture  of  their  plumage.  There 
used  to  be  any  number  of  them  on  our  place, 
though—" 

"  Ah,  well,"  the  personage  said,  with  a  wise 
nod,  and  a  bright  gleam  of  teeth,  "  you  exercise 
the  privilege  common  to  all  of  us  —  and  my  in- 
tended analogy  falls  through.  In  any  event,  it 
has  been  a  great  pleasure  to  meet  you.  Come 
and  see  me  again,  Mr.  Kennaston  —  and  mean- 
while, think  over  what  I  have  said." 


And  that  was  all.  Kennaston  returned  to  Al- 
cluid  in  a  whirl  of  formless  speculations.  The 
mirror  and  the  insane  query  as  to  white  pigeons 
could  not,  he  considered,  but  constitute  some  pass- 
word to  which  Kennaston  had  failed  to  give  the 
proper  response. 

The  mystery  had  some  connection  with  what  he 
90 


PECULIAR  CONDUCT  OF  A  PERSONAGE 

had  written  in  his  book  as  to  the  sigil  of  Scoteia. 
.  .  .  And  he  could  not  find  he  had  written  anything 
very  definite.  The  broken  disk  was  spoken  of  as 
a  talisman  in  the  vague  terms  best  suited  to  a  dis- 
cussion of  talismans  by  a  person  who  knew  noth- 
ing much  about  them.  True,  the  book  told  what 
the  talisman  looked  like ;  it  looked  like  that  bit  of 
metal  he  had  picked  up  in  the  garden.  .  .  .  He 
wondered  if  he  had  thrown  away  that  bit  of  metal; 
and,  searching,  discovered  it  in  the  desk  drawer, 
where  it  had  lain  for  several  months. 

Laid  by  the  lamp,  it  shone  agreeably  as  Ken- 
naston  puckered  his  protruding  heavy  brows  over 
the  characters  with  which  it  was  inscribed.  That 
was  what  the  sigil  looked  like  —  or,  rather,  what 
half  the  sigil  looked  like,  because  Ettarre  still  had 
the  other  half.  How  could  the  personage  have 
known  anything  about  it?  unless  there  were,  in- 
deed, really  some  secret  and  some  password 
through  which  men  won  to  place  and  the  world's 
prizes?  .  .  .  Blurred  memories  of  Eugene  Sue's 
nefarious  Jesuits  and  of  Balzac's  redoubtable 
Thirteen  arose  in  the  background  of  his  mental 
picturings.  .  .  . 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

No,  the  personage  had  probably  been  tasting 
beverages  more  potent  than  sherry;  there  were 
wild  legends,  since  disproved,  such  as  seemed  then 
to  excuse  that  supposition:  or  perhaps  he  was  in- 
sane, and  nobody  but  Felix  Kennaston  knew 
it.  ...  What  could  a  little  mirror,  much  less 
pigeons,  have  to  do  with  this  bit  of  metal  ?  —  ex- 
cept that  this  bit  of  metal,  too,  reflected  light  so 
that  the  strain  tired  your  eyes,  thus  steadily  to 
look  down  upon  the  thing.  .  .  . 


92 


Of  Fain  Regret  and 
Wonder  in  the  Dark 


"JL  M" ADAM,"  he  was  insanely  stating,  "  I 
%/|  would  not  for  the  world  set  up  as  a 

-L  T  A  fit  exponent  for  the  mottoes  of  a  copy- 
book; but  I  am  not  all  base." 

"  You  are,"  flashed  she,  "a  notorious  rogue." 

It  was  quite  dark.  Kennaston  could  not  see  the 
woman  with  whom  he  was  talking.  But  they 
were  in  an  open  paved  place,  like  a  courtyard,  and 
he  was  facing  the  great  shut  door  against  which 
she  stood,  vaguely  discernible.  He  knew  they 
were  waiting  for  some  one  to  open  this  door.  It 
seemed  to  him,  for  no  reason  at  all,  that  they 
were  at  Tunbridge  Wells.  But  there  was  no 
light  anywhere.  Complete  darkness  submerged 
them;  the  skies  showed  not  one  glimmer  over- 
head. 

"  That  I  am  of  smirched  repute,  madam,  I  lack 
both  grounds  and  inclination  to  deny.  Yet  I  am 

93 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

not  so  through  choice.  Believe  me,  I  am  in- 
nately of  wellnigh  ducal  disposition;  and  by  prefer- 
ence, an  ill  name  is  as  obnoxious  to  me  as  —  shall 
we  say?  —  soiled  linen  or  a  coat  of  last  year's  cut. 
But  then,  que  voulez-vous?  as  our  lively  neighbors 
observe.  Squeamishness  was  never  yet  bred  in  an 
empty  pocket;  and  I  am  thus  compelled  to  the  com- 
mission of  divers  profitable  peccadilloes,  once  in 
a  blue  moon,  by  the  dictates  of  that  same  hap- 
hazard chance  which  to-night  has  pressed  me  into 
the  service  of  innocence  and  virtue." 

She  kept  silence ;  and  he  went  on  in  lightheaded 
wonder  as  to  what  this  dream,  so  plainly  recog- 
nized as  such,  was  all  about,  and  as  to  whence 
came  the  words  which  sprang  so  nimbly  to  his  lips, 
and  as  to  what  was  the  cause  of  his  great  wistful 
sorrow.  Perhaps  if  he  listened  very  attentively 
to  what  he  was  saying,  he  might  find  out. 

"  You  do  not  answer,  madam.  Yet  think  a 
little.  I  am  a  notorious  rogue :  the  circumstance 
is  conceded.  But  do  you  think  I  have  selfishly  be- 
come so  in  quest  of  amusement?  Nay,  I  can  as- 
sure you  that  Newgate,  the  wigged  judge,  the  jolt- 
ing cart,  the  gallows,  is  no  pleasant  dream  o' 
94 


VAIN     REGRET     AND     WONDER 

nights.  But  what  choice  had  I?  Cast  forth  to 
the  gutter's  miring  in  the  susceptible  years  of  in- 
fancy, a  girl  of  the  town's  byblow,  what  choice  had 
I,  in  heaven's  name?  If  'I  may  not  live  as  I 
would,  I  must  live  as  I  may;  in  emperors  and  par- 
sons and  sewer-diggers  and  cheese-mites  that  claim 
is  equally  allowed." 

"  You  are  a  thief?  "  she  asked,  pensively. 

"  Let  us  put  it,  rather,  that  I  have  proved  in 
life's  hard  school  an  indifferent  Latinist,  by  occa- 
sionally confounding  meum  with  tuum." 

"  A  murderer?" 

"  Something  of  the  sort  might  be  my  descrip- 
tion in  puritanic  mouths.  You  know  at  least  what 
happened  at  The  Cat  and  Hautbois." 

("  But  what  in  the  world  had  happened  there?  " 
Kennaston  wondered.) 

"  And  yet  — "     The  sweet  voice  marveled. 

"  And  yet  I  have  saved  you  from  Lord  Umfra- 
ville  ?  Ah,  madam,  Providence  labors  with  quaint 
instruments,  dilapidating  Troy  by  means  of  a 
wood  rocking-horse,  and  loosing  sin  into  the  uni- 
verse through  a  half-eaten  apple.  Nay,  I  repeat, 
I  am  not  all  base;  and  I  have  read  somewhere 

95 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

that  those  who  are  in  honor  wholly  shipwrecked 
will  yet  very  often  cling  desperately  to  one  stray 
spar  of  virtue." 

He  could  tell  her  hand  had  raised  to  the 
knocker  on  the  closed  door.  "  Mr.  Vanringham, 
will  you  answer  me  a  question?  " 

"  A  thousand.      (So  I  am  Fanringham") 

"  I  have  not  knocked.  I  possess,  as  you  know, 
a  considerable  fortune  in  my  own  right.  It  would 
be  easy  for  a  strong  man  —  and,  sure,  your  shoul- 
ders are  prodigiously  broad,  Mr.  Cut-throat !  — 
very  easy  for  him  to  stifle  my  cries  and  carry  me 
away,  even  now.  And  then,  to  preserve  my 
honor,  I  would  have  no  choice  save  to  marry  that 
broad-shouldered  man.  Is  this  not  truth?  " 

"  It  is  the  goddess  herself,  newly  stolen  from 
her  well.  O  dea  eerie!  " 

"I  am  not  absolutely  hideous,  either?"  she 
queried,  absent-mindedly. 

"  Dame  Venus,"  Kennaston  observed,  "  may 
have  made  a  similar  demand  of  the  waves  at  Cy- 
thera  when  she  first  rose  among  their  billows :  and 
I  doubt  not  that  the  white  foaming  waters,  amor- 


VAIN     REGRET     AND     WONDER 

ously  clutching  at  her  far  whiter  feet,  laughed  and 
murmured  the  answer  I  would  give  did  I  not  know 
your  question  was  put  in  a  spirit  of  mockery." 

"  And  yet  — "  she  re-began. 

"And  yet,  I  resist  all  these  temptations? 
Frankly,  had  you  been  in  my  eyes  less  desirable, 
madam,  you  would  not  have  reached  home  thus 
uneventfully;  for  a  rich  marriage  is  the  only  chance 
adapted  to  repair  my  tattered  fortunes;  and  the 
devil  is  cunning  to  avail  himself  of  our  flesh's 
frailty.  Had  you  been  the  fat  widow  of  some 
City  knight,  I  would  have  played  my  lord  of  Um- 
fraville's  part,  upon  my  pettier  scale.  Or,  had  I 
esteemed  it  possible  for  me  to  have  done  with  my 
old  life,  I  would  have  essayed  to  devote  a  cleaner 
existence  to  your  service  and  worship.  Indeed, 
indeed,  I  speak  the  truth,  however  jestingly!  " 
he  said,  with  sudden  wildness.  "  But  what  would 
you  have?  I  would  not  entrust  your  fan,  much 
less  your  happiness,  to  the  keeping  of  a  creature 
so  untrustworthy  as  I  know  myself  to  be.  In  fine, 
I  look  upon  you,  madam,  in  such  a  rapture  of 
veneration  and  tenderness  and  joy  and  heartbreak- 

97 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

ing  yearning,  that  it  is  necessary  I  get  very  tipsy 
to-night,  and  strive  to  forget  that  I,  too,  might 
have  lived  cleanlily." 

And  Kennaston,  as  he  spoke  thus,  engulfed  in 
darkness,  knew  it  was  a  noble  sorrow  which  pos- 
sessed him  —  a  stingless  wistful  sorrow  such  as 
is  aroused  by  the  unfolding  of  a  well-acted  tragedy 
or  the  progress  of  a  lofty  music.  This  ruffian 
longing,  quite  hopelessly,  to  be  made  clean  again, 
so  worshipful  of  his  loved  lady's  purity  and  love- 
liness, and  knowing  loveliness  and  purity  to  be  for- 
ever unattainable  in  his  mean  life,  was  Felix  Ken- 
naston, somehow.  .  .  .  What  was  it  Maugis 
d'Aigremont  had  said? — "I  have  been  guilty 
of  many  wickednesses,  I  have  held  much  filthy 
traffic  such  as  my  soul  loathed;  and  yet,  I  swear 
to  you,  I  seem  to  myself  to  be  still  the  boy  who 
once  was  I."  Kennaston  understood  now,  for 
the  first  time  with  deep  reality,  what  his  puppet 
had  meant;  and  how  a  man's  deeds  in  the  flesh 
may  travesty  the  man  himself. 

But  the  door  opened.  Confusedly  Kennaston 
was  aware  of  brilliantly-lighted  rooms  beyond,  of 
the  chatter  of  gay  people,  of  thin  tinkling  music, 


VAIN     REGRET     AND     WONDER 

and,  more  immediately,  of  two  lackeys,  much  be- 
powdered  as  to  their  heads,  and  stately  in  new 
liveries  of  blue-and-silver.  Confusedly  he  noted 
these  things,  for  the  woman  had  paused  in  the 
bright  doorway,  and  all  the  loveliness  of  Ettarre 
was  visible  now  to  him,  and  she  had  given  a  de- 
lighted cry  of  recognition. 

"  La,  it  is  Horvendile !  and  we  are  having  the 
same  dream  again!  " 

This  much  he  heard  and  saw  as  her  hand  went 
out  gladly  toward  him.  Then  as  she  touched  him 
the  universe  seemed  to  fold  about  Felix  Kennas- 
ton,  just  as  a  hand  closes,  and  he  was  sitting  at  the 
writing-table  in  the  library,  with  a  gleaming  scrap 
of  metal  before  him. 


He  sat  thus  for  a  long  while. 

"  I  can  make  nothing  of  all  this.  I  remember 
of  course  that  I  saw  Muriel  Allardyce  stand  very 
much  like  that,  in  the  doorway  of  the  Royal  Hotel, 
at  the  Green  Chalybeate  —  and  how  many  years 
ago,  good  Lord !  .  .  .  And  equally  of  course  the 
most  plausible  explanation  is  that  I  am  losing 
my  wits.  Or,  else,  it  may  be  that  I  am  playing 

99 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

blindfold  with  perilous  matters.  Felix  Kennas- 
ton,  my  friend,  the  safest  plan  —  the  one  as- 
suredly safe  plan  for  you  —  would  be  to  throw 
away  this  devil's  toy,  and  forget  it  completely. 
.  .  .  And,  I  will,  too  —  the  very  first  thing  to- 
morrow morning  —  or  after  I  have  had  a  few 
days  to  think  it  over,  any  way.  .  .  ." 

But  even  as  he  made  this  compact  it  was  with- 
out much  lively  faith  in  his  promises. 


100 


Book  Third 


"  Come  to  me  in  my  dreams,  and  then 
By  day  I  shall  be  well  again ! 
For  then  the  night  will  more  than  pay 
The  hopeless  longing  of  long  day. 

"  Come,  as  thou  cam'st  a  thousand  times, 
A  messenger  from  lovelier  climes, 
To  smile  on  our  drear  world,  and  be 
As  kind  to  others  as  to  me !  " 


They  Come  to  a  High  Place 


HE  was  looking  down  at  the  most  repulsive 
old  woman  he  had  ever  seen.  Hers 
was  the  abhorrent  fatness  of  a  spider; 
her  flesh  appeared  to  have  the  coloring  and  con- 
sistency of  dough.  She  sat  upon  the  stone  pave- 
ment, knitting;  her  eyes,  which  raised  to  his  un- 
blinkingly,  were  black,  secretive,  and  imperson- 
ally malevolent;  and  her  jaws  stirred  without 
ceasing,  in  a  loose  chewing  motion,  so  that  the 
white  hairs,  rooted  in  the  big  mole  on  her  chin, 
twitched  and  glittered  in  the  sunlight. 

"  But  one  does  not  pay  on  entering,"  she  was 
saying.  "  One  pays  as  one  goes  out.  It  is  the 
rule." 

"And  what  do  you  knit,  mother?  "  Kennaston 
asked  her. 

"  Eh,  I  shall  never  know  until  God's  funeral 
is  preached,"  the  old  woman  said.  "  I  only  know 
it  is  forbidden  me  to  stop." 

103 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

So  he  went  past  her,  aware  that  through  some 
nameless  grace  the  girl  whom  he  had  twice  seen 
in  dreams  awaited  him  there,  and  that  the  girl's 
face  was  the  face  of  Ettarre.  She  stood  by  a 
stone  balustrade,  upon  which  squatted  tall  stone 
monsters  —  weird  and  haphazard  collocations, 
as  touched  anatomy,  of  bird  and  brute  and  fiend  — 
and  she  in  common  with  these  hobgoblins  looked 
down  upon  a  widespread  comely  city.  The  time 
was  a  bright  and  windy  morning  in  spring;  and  the 
sky,  unclouded,  was  like  an  inverted  cup  which  did 
not  merely  roof  Ettarre  and  the  man  who  had 
come  back  to  her,  but  inclosed  them  in  incommuni- 
cable isolation.  To  the  left,  beyond  shimmering 
tree-tops,  so  far  beneath  them  that  it  made  Felix 
Kennaston  dizzy  to  look,  the  ruffling  surface  of  a 
river  gleamed.  ...  It  was  in  much  this  fashion, 
he  recalled,  that  Ettarre  and  Horvendile  had 
stood  alone  together  among  the  turrets  of  Storis- 
ende. 

"  But  now  I  wonder  where  on  the  face  of  — 
or,  rather,  so  far  above  the  face  of  what  especial 
planet  we  may  happen  to  be?"  Kennaston 
marveled  happily  — "  or  east  of  the  sun  or  west  of 
104 


THEY    COME    TO    A    HIGH    PLACE 

the  moon?  At  all  events,  it  hardly  matters. 
Suffice  it  that  we  are  in  love's  land  to-day.  Why 
worry  over  one  particular  inexplicable  detail, 
where  everything  is  incomprehensible?" 

"  I  was  never  here  before,  Horvendile;  and  I 
have  waited  for  you  so  long." 

He  looked  at  her;  and  again  his  heart  moved 
with  glad  adoration.  It  was  not  merely  that  Et- 
tarre  was  so  pleasing  to  the  eye,  and  distinguished 
by  so  many  delicate  clarities  of  color  —  so  young, 
so  quick  of  movement,  so  slender,  so  shapely,  so 
inexpressibly  virginal  —  but  the  heady  knowl- 
edge that  here  on  dizzying  heights  he,  Felix  Ken- 
naston,  was  somehow  playing  with  superhuman 
matters,  and  that  no  power  could  induce  him  to 
desist  from  his  delicious  and  perilous  frolic, 
stirred,  in  deep  recesses  of  his  being,  nameless 
springs.  Nameless  they  must  remain ;  for  it  was 
as  though  he  had  discovered  himself  to  possess  a 
sixth  sense;  and  he  found  that  the  contrivers  of 
language,  being  less  prodigally  gifted,  had  never 
been  at  need  to  invent  any  terms  wherewith  to  ex- 
press this  sense's  gratification.  But  he  knew  that 
he  was  strong  and  admirable;  that  men  and  men's 

105 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

affairs  lay  far  beneath  him ;  that  Ettarre  belonged 
to  him ;  and,  most  vividly  of  all,  that  the  exultance 
which  possessed  him  was  a  by-product  of  an  un- 
stable dream. 

"  Yet  it  is  not  any  city  of  to-day,"  he  was  say- 
ing. "  Look,  how  yonder  little  rascal  glitters  — 
he  is  wearing  a  helmet  of  some  sort  and  a  gorget. 
Why,  all  those  pigmies,  if  you  look  closely,  go  in 
far  braver  scarlets  and  purples  than  we  elect  to 
skulk  about  in  nowadays;  and  there  is  not  an  of- 
fice-building or  an  electric-light  advertisement  of 
chewing-gum  in  sight.  No,  that  hotchpotch  of 
huddled  gables  and  parapets  and  towers  shaped 
like  lanterns  was  stolen  straight  out  of  some  Dore 
illustration  for  Rabelais  or  Les  Conies  Drola- 
tiques.  But  it  does  not  matter  at  all,  and  it  will 
never  matter,  where  we  may  chance  to  be,  Ettarre. 
What  really  and  greatly  matters,  is  that  when  I 
try  to  touch  you  everything  vanishes." 

The  girl  was  frankly  puzzled.  "  Yes,  that 
seems  a  part  of  the  sigil's  magic.  .  .  ." 


106 


Of  the  Sigil  and  One  Use 
of  It 


IT  proved  that  this  was  indeed  a  part  of  the 
sigil's  wonder-working:  Kennaston  learned  by 
experience  that  whenever,  even  by  accident, 
he  was  about  to  touch  Ettarre  his  dream  would 
end  like  a  burst  bubble.     He  would  find  himself 
alone  and  staring  at  the  gleaming  fragment  of 
metal. 

Before  long  he  also  learned  something  concern- 
ing the  sigil  of  Scoteia,  of  which  this  piece  of 
metal  once  formed  a  part;  for  it  was  permitted 
him  to  see  the  sigil  in  its  entirety,  many  centuries 
before  it  was  shattered:  it  was  then  one  of  the 
treasures  of  the  Didascalion,  a  peculiar  sort  of 
girls'  school  in  King  Ptolemy  Physcon's  city  of 
Alexandria,  where  women  were  tutored  to  honor 
fittingly  the  power  which  this  sigil  served.  But  it 
is  not  expedient  to  speak  clearly  concerning  this; 
and  the  real  name  of  the  sigil  was,  of  course,  quite 

107 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

different  from  that  which  Kennaston  had  given  it 
in  his  romance. 

So  began  an  odd  divided  life  for  Felix  Kennas- 
ton. At  first  he  put  his  half  of  the  sigil  in  an 
envelope,  which  he  hid  in  a  desk  in  the  library, 
under  a  pile  of  his  dead  uncle's  unused  bookplates; 
whence,  when  occasion  served,  it  was  taken  out  in 
order  that  when  held  so  as  to  reflect  the  lamplight 
—  for  this  was  always  necessary  —  it  might  in- 
duce the  desired  dream  of  Ettarre. 

Later  Kennaston  thought  of  an  expedient  by 
which  to  prolong  his  dreams.  Nightly  he 
lighted  and  set  by  his  bedside  a  stump  of  candle. 
Its  tiny  flame,  after  he  had  utilized  its  reflection, 
would  harmlessly  burn  out  while  his  body  slept 
with  a  bit  of  metal  in  one  hand;  and  he  would  be 
freed  of  Felix  Kennaston  for  eight  hours  unin- 
terruptedly. To  have  left  an  electric-light  turned 
on  until  he  awakened,  would  in  the  end  have  ex- 
posed him  to  detection  and  the  not-impossible  ap- 
pointment of  a  commission  in  lunacy;  and  he  recog- 
nized the  potentialities  of  such  mischance  with 
frank  distaste.  As  affairs  sped,  however,  he 
could  without  great  difficulty  buy  his  candles  in 
1 08 


OF    THE    SIGIL    AND    ONE    USE    OF    IT 

secret.  He  was  glad  now  he  was  well-to-do,  if 
only  because,  as  an  incidental  result  of  materially 
bettered  fortunes,  he  and  his  wife  had  separate 
bedrooms. 


109 


Treats  of  a  Prelate  and,  in 
Part,  of  Pigeons 

THE  diurnal  part  of  Kennaston's  life  was 
largely  devoted  to  writing  The  Tinc- 
tured Veil  —  that  amazing  performance 
which  he  subsequently  gave  to  a  bewildered  world. 
And  for  the  rest,  his  waking  life  went  on  in  the 
old  round. 

But  this  is  not  —  save  by  way  of  an  occasional 
parenthesis  —  a  chronicle  of  Felix  Kennaston's 
doings  in  the  flesh.  You  may  find  all  that  in 
Mr.  Froser's  Biography.  Flippant,  inefficient 
and  moody,  Felix  Kennaston  was  not  in  the  flesh 
particularly  engaging;  and  in  writing  this  record  it 
is  necessary  to  keep  his  fat  corporeal  personality 
in  the  background  as  much  as  may  be  possible,  lest 
it  should  cause  you,  as  it  so  often  induced  us  of 
Lichfield,  to  find  the  man  repellent,  and  nothing 
more. 

Now  it  befell  that  this  spring  died  Bishop  Ark- 
no 


TREATS  OF  A  PRELATE  AND  OF  PIGEONS 

wright  —  of  the  Cathedral  of  the  Bleeding  Heart 
—  and  many  dignitaries  of  his  faith  journeyed  to 
Lichfield  to  attend  the  funeral.  Chief  among 
these  was  a  prelate  who  very  long  ago  had  lived 
in  Lichfield,  when  he  was  merely  a  bishop.  Ken- 
naston  was  no  little  surprised  to  receive  a  note  in- 
forming him  that  this  eminent  churchman  would 
be  pleased  to  see  Mr.  Felix  Kennaston  that  eve- 
ning at  the  Bishop's  House. 

The  prelate  sat  alone  in  a  sparsely  furnished, 
rather  dark,  and  noticeably  dusty  room.  He  was 
like  a  lean  effigy  carved  in  time-yellowed  ivory, 
and  his  voice  was  curiously  ingratiating.  Ken- 
naston recognized  with  joy  that  this  old  man 
talked  like  a  person  in  a  book,  in  completed  sen- 
tences and  picked  phrases,  instead  of  employing 
the  fragmentary  verbal  shorthand  of  ordinary 
Lichfieldian  conversation:  and  Kennaston,  to 
whom  the  slovenliness  of  fairly  cultured  people's 
daily  talk  was  always  a  mystery  and  an  irritant, 
fell  with  promptitude  into  the  same  tone. 

The  prelate,  it  developed,  had  when  he  lived  in 
Lichfield  known  Kennaston's  dead  uncle  — "  for 
whom  I  had  the  highest  esteem,  and  whose  friend- 

iii 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

ship  I  valued  most  dearly."  He  hoped  that  Ken- 
naston  would  pardon  the  foibles  of  old  age  and 
overlook  this  trespass  upon  Kennaston's  time. 
For  the  prelate  had,  he  said,  really  a  personal 
interest  in  the  only  surviving  relative  of  his  dead 
friend. 

"  There  is  a  portrait  of  you,  sir,  in  my  library 
—  very  gorgeous,  in  full  canonicals  —  just  as  my 
uncle  left  the  room,"  said  Kennaston,  all  at  sea. 
But  the  prelate  had  begun  to  talk  —  amiably,  and 
in  the  most  commonplace  fashion  conceivable  — 
of  his  former  life  in  Lichfield,  and  of  the  folk  who 
had  lived  there  then,  and  to  ask  questions  about 
their  descendants,  which  Kennaston  answered  as 
he  best  could.  The  whole  affair  was  puzzling 
Kennaston,  for  he  could  think  of  no  reason  why 
this  frail  ancient  gentleman  should  have  sent  for  a 
stranger,  even  though  that  stranger  were  the 
nephew  of  a  dead  friend,  just  that  they  might  dis- 
cuss trivialities. 

So  their  talking  veered,  as  it  seemed,  at  ran- 
dom. .  .  . 

1  Yes,  I  was  often  a  guest  at  Alcluid  —  a  very 
beautiful  home  it  was  in  those  days,  famed,  as  I 
112 


TREATS  OF  A  PRELATE  AND  OF  PIGEONS 

remember,  for  the  many  breeds  of  pigeons  which 
your  uncle  amused  himself  by  maintaining.  I  sup- 
pose that  you  also  raise  white  pigeons,  my  son?  " 

Kennaston  saw  that  the  prelate  now  held  a  small 
square  mirror  in  his  left  hand.  "  No,  sir/'  Ken- 
naston answered  evenly;  "there  were  a  great 
many  about  the  place  when  it  came  into  our  pos- 
session; but  we  have  never  gone  in  very  seriously 
for  farming." 

"  The  pigeon  has  so  many  literary  associations 
that  I  should  have  thought  it  would  appeal  to  a 
man  of  letters,"  the  prelate  continued.  "  I  ought 
to  have  said  earlier  perhaps  that  I  read  Men  Who 
Loved  Alison  with  great  interest  and  enjoyment. 
It  is  a  notable  book.  Yet  in  dealing  with  the  sigil 
of  Scoteia  —  or  so  at  least  it  seemed  to  me  —  you 
touched  upon  subjects  which  had  better  be  left  un- 
disturbed. There  are  drugs,  my  son,  which  work 
much  good  in  the  hands  of  the  skilled  physician, 
but  cannot  be  intrusted  without  danger  to  the  vul- 
gar." 

He  spoke  gently;  yet  it  appeared  to  Kennas- 
ton a  threat  was  voiced. 

"  Sir,"  Kennaston  began,  "  I  must  tell  you  that 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

in  writing  of  the  sigil  —  as  I  called  it  —  I  de- 
signed to  employ  only  such  general  terms  as  ro- 
mance ordinarily  accords  to  talismans.  All  I 
wrote  —  I  thought  —  was  sheer  invention.  It  is 
true  I  found  by  accident  a  bit  of  metal,  from  which 
I  derived  the  idea  of  my  so-called  sigiPs  appear- 
ance. That  bit  of  metal  was  to  me  then  just  a  bit 
of  metal ;  nor  have  I  any  notion,  even  to-day,  as  to 
how  it  came  to  be  lying  in  one  of  my  own  garden- 
paths." 

He  paused.  The  prelate  nodded.  "  It  is  al- 
ways interesting  to  hear  whence  makers  of  cre- 
ative literature  draw  their  material,"  he  stated. 

"  Since  then,  sir,  by  the  drollest  of  coincidences, 
a  famous  personage  has  spoken  to  me  in  almost 
the  identical  words  you  employed  this  evening,  as 
to  the  sigil  of  Scoteia.  The  coincidence,  sir,  lay 
less  in  what  was  said  than  in  the  apparently  irrele- 
vant allusion  to  white  pigeons  which  the  personage 
too  made,  and  the  little  mirror  which  he  too 
held  as  he  spoke.  Can  you  not  see,  sir,"  Ken- 
naston  asked  gaily,  "  to  what  wild  imaginings  the 
coincidence  tempts  a  weaver  of  romance  ?  I  could 
find  it  in  my  heart  to  believe  it  the  cream  of  an 
114 


TREATS  OF  A  PRELATE  AND  OF  PIGEONS 

ironic  jest  that  you  great  ones  of  the  earth  have 
tested  me  with  a  password,  mistakenly  supposing 
that  I,  also,  was  initiate.  I  am  tempted  to  im- 
agine some  secret  understanding,  some  hidden  co- 
operancy,  by  which  you  strengthen  or,  possibly, 
have  attained  your  power.  Confess,  sir,  is  not 
the  coincidence  a  droll  one?  " 

He  spoke  lightly,  but  his  heart  was  beating  fast. 

"  It  is  remarkable  enough,"  the  prelate  con- 
ceded, smiling.  He  asked  the  name  of  the  per- 
sonage whom  coincidence  linked  with  him,  and 
being  told  it,  chuckled.  "  I  do  not  think  it  very 
odd  he  carried  a  mirror,"  the  prelate  considered. 
"  He  lives  before  a  mirror,  and  behind  a  mega- 
phone. I  confess  —  mea  culpa!  —  I  often  find 
my  little  looking-glass  a  convenience,  in  making 
sure  all  is  right  before  I  go  into  the  pulpit.  Not  a 
few  men  in  public  life,  I  believe,  carry  such  mir- 
rors," he  said,  slowly.  "  But  you,  I  take  it,  have 
no  taste  for  public  life?  " 

"  I  can  assure  you  — "  Kennaston  began. 

'*  Think  well,  my  son !  Suppose,  for  one  mad 
instant,  that  your  wild  imaginings  were  not  wholly 
insane  ?  suppose  that  you  had  accidentally  stumbled 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

upon  enough  of  a  certain  secret  to  make  it  simpler 
to  tell  you  the  whole  mystery?  Cannot  a  trained 
romancer  conceive  what  you  might  hope  for 
then?" 

Very  still  it  was  in  the  dark  room.  .  .  . 

Kennaston  was  horribly  frightened.  "  I  can 
assure  you,  sir,  that  even  then  I  would  prefer  my 
peaceful  lazy  life  and  my  dreams.  I  have  not  any 
aptitude  for  action." 

"Ah,  well,"  the  prelate  estimated;  "it  is 
scarcely  a  churchman's  part  to  play  advocatus 
mundi.  Believe  me,  I  would  not  tempt  you  from 
your  books.  And  for  our  dreams,  I  have  always 
held  heretically,  we  are  more  responsible  than  for 
our  actions,  since  it  is  what  we  are,  uninfluenced, 
that  determines  our  dreams."  He  sieemed  to 
meditate.  "  I  will  not  tempt  you,  therefore,  to 
tell  me  the  whole  truth  concerning  that  bit  of 
metal.  I  suspect,  quite  candidly,  you  are  keeping 
something  back,  my  son.  But  you  exercise  a  privi- 
lege common  to  all  of  us." 

"  At  least,"  said  Kennaston,  "  we  will  hope  my 
poor  wits  may  not  be  shaken  by  any  more  —  coin- 
cidences." 
116 


TREATS  OF  A  PRELATE  AND  OF  PIGEONS 

"  I  am  tolerably  certain^"  quoth  the  prelate, 
with  an  indulgent  smile,  "  that  there  will  be  no 
more  coincidences." 

Then  he  gave  Kennaston  his  stately  blessing; 
and  Kennaston  went  back  to  his  life  of  dreams. 


117 


IV 

Local  Laws  of  Nephe- 
lococcygia 


THERE  was  no  continuity  in  these  dreams 
save  that  Ettarre  was  in  each  of  them. 
A  dream  would  usually  begin  with  some 
lightheaded  topsyturviness,  as  when  Kennaston 
found  himself  gazing  forlornly  down  at  his  re- 
mote feet  —  having  grown  so  tall  that  they  were 
yards  away  from  him  and  he  was  afraid  to  stand 
up  —  or  lean  strangers  carefully  and  gruesomely 
explained  the  importance  of  the  task  set  him  by 
quoting  fragments  of  the  multiplication  tables,  or 
a  mad  bull  who  happened  to  be  the  King  of  Spain 
was  pursuing  him  through  a  city  of  blind  people. 
But  presently,  as  dregs  settle  a  little  by  a  little  in  a 
glass  of  water  and  leave  it  clear,  his  dream-world 
would  become  rational  and  compliant  with  famil- 
iar natural  laws,  and  Ettarre  would  be  there  — 
desirable  above  all  other  contents  of  the  universe, 
and  not  to  be  touched  under  penalty  of  ending  all. 
118 


LOCAL    LAWS    OF    NEPHELOCOCCYGIA 

Sometimes  they  would  be  alone  in  places  which 
he  did  not  recognize,  sometimes  they  would  be  liv- 
ing, under  the  Stuarts  or  the  Valois  or  the  Caesars, 
or  other  dynasties  long  since  unkingdomed,  human 
lives  whose  obligations  and  imbroglios  affected 
Horvendile  and  Ettarre  to  much  that  half-serious 
concern  with  which  one  follows  the  action  of  a 
romance  or  a  well-acted  play ;  for  it  was  perfectly 
understood  between  Horvendile  and  Ettarre  that 
they  were  involved  in  the  affairs  of  a  dream. 

Ettarre  seemed  to  remember  nothing  of  the 
happenings  Kennaston  had  invented  in  his  book. 
And  Guiron  and  Maugis  d'Aigremont  and  Count 
Emmerick  and  the  other  people  in  The  Audit  at 
Storisende  —  once  more  to  give  Men  Who  Loved 
Alison  its  original  title  —  were  names  that  rang 
familiar  to  her  somehow,  she  confessed,  but  with- 
out her  knowing  why.  And  so,  Kennaston  came 
at  last  to  comprehend  that  perhaps  the  Ettarre  he 
loved  was  not  the  heroine  of  his  book  inexplicably 
vivified;  but,  rather,  that  in  the  book  he  had,  just 
as  inexplicably,  drawn  a  blurred  portrait  of  the 
Ettarre  he  loved,  that  ageless  lovable  and  loving 
woman  of  whom  all  poets  had  been  granted  fitful 

119 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

broken  glimpses  —  dimly  prefiguring  her  advent 
into  his  life  too,  with  pallid  and  feeble  visionings. 
But  of  this  he  was  not  ever  sure ;  nor  did  he  greatly 
care,  now  that  he  had  his  dreams. 

There  was,  be  it  repeated,  no  continuity  in  these 
dreams  save  that  Ettarre  was  in  each  of  them ;  that 
alone  they  had  in  common:  but  each  dream  con- 
formed to  certain  general  laws.  For  instance, 
there  was  never  any  confusion  of  time  —  that  is, 
a  dream  extended  over  precisely  the  amount  of 
time  he  actually  slept,  so  that  each  dream-life  was 
limited  to  some  eight  hours  or  thereabouts.  No 
dream  was  ever  iterated,  nor  did  he  ever  twice  find 
himself  in  the  same  surroundings  as  touched  chron- 
ology; thus,  he  was  often  in  Paris  and  Constanti- 
nople and  Alexandria  and  Rome  and  London, 
revisiting  even  the  exact  spot,  the  very  street- 
corner,  which  had  figured  in  some  former  dream ; 
but  as  terrestrial  time  went,  the  events  of  his  first 
dream  would  either  have  happened  years  ago  or 
else  not  be  due  to  happen  until  a  great  while  later. 

He  never  dreamed  of  absolutely  barbaric  or 
orderless  epochs,  nor  of  happenings  (so  far  as  he 
could  ascertain)  elsewhere  than  in  Europe  and 

120 


LOCAL    LAWS    OF    NEPHELOCOCCYGIA 

about  the  Mediterranean  coasts;  even  within  these 
confines  his  dreams  were  as  a  rule  restricted  to 
urban  matters,  rarely  straying  beyond  city  walls : 
his  hypothesis  in  explanation  of  these  facts  was 
curious,  but  too  fine-spun  to  be  here  repeated  profit- 
ably. 

For  a  while  Kennaston  thought  these  dreams  to 
be  bits  of  lives  he  had  lived  in  previous  incarna- 
tions; later  he  was  inclined  to  discard  this  view. 
He  never  to  his  knowledge  lived  through  precisely 
the  same  moment  in  two  different  capacities  and 
places;  but  more  than  once  he  came  within  a  few 
years  of  doing  this,  so  that  even  had  he  died  im- 
mediately after  the  earlier-timed  dream,  it  would 
have  been  impossible  for  him  to  have  been  reborn 
and  reach  the  age  he  had  attained  in  that  dream 
whose  period  was  only  a  trifle  later.  In  his 
dreams  Kennaston's  age  varied  slightly,  but  was 
almost  always  in  pleasant  proximity  to  twenty-five. 
Thus,  he  was  in  Jerusalem  on  the  day  of  the  Cruci- 
fixion and  was  aged  about  twenty-three ;  yet  in  an- 
other dream  he  was  at  Capreae  when  Tiberius  died 
there,  seven  years  afterward,  and  Kennaston  was 
then  still  in  the  early  twenties :  and,  again,  he  was 

121 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 


in  London,  at  Whitehall,  in  1649,  an^  at  Vaux- 
le-Vicomte  near  Fontainebleau  in  1661,  being  on 
each  occasion  twenty-three  or  -four.  Kennaston 
could  suggest  no  explanation  of  this. 

He  often  regretted  that  he  was  never  in  any 
dream  anybody  of  historical  prominence,  so  that 
he  could  have  found  out  what  became  of  him  after 
the  dream  ended.  But  though  he  sometimes 
talked  with  notable  persons  —  inwardly  gloating 
meanwhile  over  his  knowledge  of  what  would  be 
the  outcome  of  their  warfaring  or  statecraft,  and 
of  the  manner  and  even  the  hour  of  their  deaths 
—  he  himself  seemed  fated,  as  a  rule,  never  to  be 
any  one  of  importance  in  the  world's  estimation. 
Indeed,  as  Kennaston  cheerfully  recognized,  his 
was  not  a  temperament  likely  to  succeed,  as 
touched  material  matters,  in  any  imaginable  state 
of  society;  there  was  not,  and  never  had  been,  any 
workaday  world  in  which  —  as  he  had  said  at 
Storisende  —  he  and  his  like  would  not,  in  so  far 
as  temporal  prizes  were  concerned,  appear  to 
waste  at  loose  ends  and  live  futilely.  Then,  more- 
over, in  each  dream  he  was  woefully  hampered  by 
inability  to  recall  preceding  events  in  the  life  he 
122 


LOCAL    LAWS    OF    NEPHELOCOCCYGIA 

was  then  leading,  which  handicap  doomed  him  to 
redoubled  inefficiencies.  But  that  did  not  matter 
now,  in  view  of  his  prodigal  recompenses.  .  .  . 

It  was  some  while  before  the  man  made  the 
quaint  discovery  that  in  these  dreams  he  did  not 
in  any  way  resemble  Felix  Kennaston  physically. 
They  were  astray  in  an  autumn  forest,  resting 
beside  a  small  fire  which  he  had  kindled  in  the 
shelter  of  a  boulder,  when  Ettarre  chanced  to 
speak  of  his  brown  eyes,  and  thereby  to  perplex 
him.  But  there  was  in  this  dream  nothing  which 
would  reflect  his  countenance;  and  it  was  later,  in 
Troy  Town  (Laomedon  ruled  the  city  then,  and 
Priam  they  saw  as  a  lad  playing  at  marbles  in  a 
paved  courtyard,  where  tethered  oxen  watched  him 
over  curiously  painted  mangers)  that  Kennaston 
looked  into  a  steel  mirror,  framed  with  intertwined 
ivory  serpents  that  had  emeralds  for  eyes,  and 
found  there  a  puzzled  stranger. 

Thus  it  was  he  discovered  that  in  these  dreams 
he  was  a  tall  lean  youngster,  with  ruddy  cheeks, 
wide-set  brown  eyes,  and  a  smallish  head  covered 
with  crisp  tight-curling  dark-red  hair;  nor  did  his 
appearance  ever  alter,  to  his  knowledge,  in  any 

123 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

subsequent  dream.  What  he  saw  was  so  different 
from  the  pudgy  pasty  man  of  forty-odd  who,  he 
knew,  lay  at  this  moment  in  Felix  Kennaston's  bed, 
breathing  heavily  and  clasping  a  bit  of  metal  in 
his  pudgy  hand,  that  the  stranger  in  the  mirror 
laughed  appreciatively. 


124 


V 

Of  Divers  Fleshly  Riddles 


A  LITTLE  by  a  little  he  was  beginning  to 
lose  interest  in  that  pudgy  pasty  man  of 
forty-odd  who  was  called  Felix  Kennas- 
ton,  and  to  handle  his  affairs  more  slackly.     Once 
or  twice  Kennaston  caught  his  wife  regarding  him 
furtively,  with  a  sort  of  anxious  distrust.   .  .  . 

Let  there  be  no  mistake  here :  Felix  Kennaston 
had  married  a  woman  admirably  suited  to  him, 
and  he  had  never  regretted  that  act.  Nor  with 
the  advent  of  Ettarre,  did  he  regret  it:  and  never 
at  any  time  would  he  have  considered  separating 
his  diurnal  existence  from  that  of  his  thin  beady- 
eyed  capable  wife,  with  graver  seriousness  than  he 
would  have  accorded,  say,  to  a  rambling  notion  of 
some  day  being  gripped  in  a  trap  and  having  no 
way  to  escape  save  by  cutting  off  one  of  his  feet. 
His  affection  for  Kathleen  was  well-founded, 
proved,  and  understood;  but,  as  it  happens,  this 
narrative  does  not  chance  to  deal  with  that  affec- 

125 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

tion.  And  besides,  what  there  was  to  tell  con- 
cerning Kennaston's  fondness  for  his  wife  was 
duly  set  forth  years  ago. 

Meanwhile,  it  began  vaguely  to  be  rumored 
among  Kennaston's  associates  that  he  drank  more 
than  was  good  for  him;  and  toward  "  drugs  "  also 
sped  the  irresponsible  arrows  of  surmise.  He 
himself  noticed,  without  much  interest,  that  daily 
he,  who  had  once  been  garrulous,  was  growing 
more  chary  of  speech;  and  that  his  attention  was 
apt  to  wander  when  the  man's  or  woman's  face  be- 
fore him  spoke  at  any  length.  These  shifting 
faces  talked  of  wars  and  tariffs  and  investments 
and  the  weather  and  committee-meetings,  and  of 
having  seen  So-and-so  and  of  So-and-so's  having 
said  this-or-that,  and  it  all  seemed  of  importance 
to  the  wearers  of  these  faces;  so  that  he  made  pre- 
tense to  listen,  patiently.  What  did  it  matter? 

It  did  not  matter  a  farthing,  he  considered,  for 
he  had  cheated  life  of  its  main  oppression,  which 
is  loneliness.  Now  at  last  Felix  Kennaston  could 
unconcernedly  acknowledge  that  human  beings  de- 
velop graveward  in  continuous  solitude. 

His  life  until  this  had  been  in  the  main  normal, 
126 


OF  DIVERS  FLESHLY  RIDDLES 

with  its  due  share  of  normal  intimacies  with  par- 
ents, kinsmen,  friends,  a  poet's  ordinary  allotment 
of  sweethearts,  and,  chief  of  all,  with  his  wife. 
No  one  of  these  people,  as  he  reflected  in  a  com- 
minglement  of  yearning  and  complacency,  had  ever 
comprehended  the  real  Felix  Kennaston  as  he 
existed,  in  all  his  hampered  stragglings  and  mean- 
nesses, his  inadequacies  and  his  divine  unexercised 
potentialities. 

And  he,  upon  the  other  hand,  knew  nothing  of 
these  people  with  any  certainty.  Pettifoggeries 
were  too  easily  practiced  in  speech  or  gesture,  emo- 
tions were  too  often  feigned  or  overcolored  in  ex- 
pression, and  unpopular  thoughts  were  too  in- 
stinctively dissembled,  as  he  forlornly  knew  by  his 
own  conduct  of  daily  life,  for  him  to  put  very  zeal- 
ous faith  in  any  information  gained  through  his 
slender  fallible  five  senses;  and  it  was  the  cream 
of  the  jest  that  through  these  five  senses  lay  his 
only  means  of  getting  any  information  whatever. 

All  that  happened  to  him,  he  considered,  hap- 
pened inside  his  skull.  Nothing  which  happened 
in  the  big  universe  affected  him  in  the  least  except 
as  it  roused  certain  forces  lodged  in  his  skull. 

127 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

His  life  consisted  of  one  chemical  change  after 
another,  haphazardly  provoked  in  some  three 
pounds  of  fibrous  matter  tucked  inside  his  skull. 
And  so,  people's  heads  took  on  a  new  interest;  how 
was  one  to  guess  what  was  going  on  in  those  queer 
round  boxes,  inset  with  eyes,  as  people  so  glibly 
called  certain  restive  and  glinting  things  that 
moved  in  partial  independence  of  their  setting, 
and  seemed  to  have  an  individual  vitality  —  those 
queer  round  boxes  whence  vegetation  sprouted 
as  from  the  soil  of  a  planet? 

Perhaps  —  he  mused  —  perhaps  in  reality  all 
heads  were  like  isolated  planets,  with  impassable 
space  between  each  and  its  nearest  neighbor. 
You  read  in  the  newspapers  C7ery  once  in  a  while 
that,  because  of  one-or-another  inexplicable  phe- 
nomenon, Mars  was  supposed  to  be  attempting 
to  communicate  with  the  earth ;  and  perhaps  it  was 
in  just  such  blurred  and  unsatisfactory  fashion 
that  what  happened  in  one  human  head  was  sig- 
naled to  another,  on  those  rare  occasions  when 
the  signal  was  despatched  in  entire  good  faith. 
Yes,  a  perpetual  isolation,  for  all  the  fretful  and 
128 


OF  DIVERS  FLESHLY  RIDDLES 

vain  strivings  of  humanity  against  such  loneliness, 
was  probably  a  perdurable  law  in  all  other  men's 
lives,  precisely  as  it  had  been  in  his  own  life  until 
the  coming  of  Ettarre. 


129 


VI 

In  Pursuit  of  a  Whisper 

NIGHTLY    he    went    adventuring    with 
Ettarre:   and  they  saw  the   cities   and 
manners  of  many  men,  to  an  extent  un- 
dreamed-of by   Ithaca's  mundivigant  king;   and 
among  them  even  those  three  persons  who  had 
most  potently  influenced  human  life. 

For  once,  in  an  elongated  room  with  buff- 
colored  walls  —  having  scarlet  hangings  over  its 
windows,  and  seeming  larger  than  it  was  in  reality, 
because  of  its  many  mirrors  —  they  foregathered 
with  Napoleon,  on  the  evening  of  his  coronation : 
the  emperor  of  half-Europe  was  fretting  over  an 
awkward  hitch  in  the  day's  ceremony,  caused  by 
his  sisters'  attempt  to  avoid  carrying  the  Empress 
Josephine's  train;  and  he  was  grumbling  because 
the  old  French  families  continued  to  ignore  him, 
as  a  parvenu.  In  a  neglected  orchard,  sunsteeped 
and  made  drowsy  by  the  murmur  of  bees,  they 
talked  with  Shakespeare;  the  playwright,  his 
130 


IN     PURSUIT     OF     A     WHISPER 

nerves  the  worse  for  the  preceding  night's  pota- 
tions, was  peevishly  complaining  of  the  meager 
success  of  his  later  comedies,  worrying  over  Lord 
Pembroke's  neglect  of  him,  and  trying  to  concoct 
a  masque  in  the  style  of  fat  Ben  Jonson,  since  that 
was  evidently  what  the  theater-patronizing  public 
wanted.  And  they  were  with  Pontius  Pilate  in 
Jerusalem,  on  the  evening  of  a  day  when  the  sky 
had  been  black  and  the  earth  had  trembled;  and 
Pilate,  benevolent  and  replete  with  supper,  was  ex- 
plaining the  latest  theories  concerning  eclipses  and 
earthquakes  to  his  little  boy,  and  chuckling  with 
fond  pride  in  the  youngster's  intelligent  questions. 
These  three  were  a  few  among  the  prominent 
worthies  of  remoter  days  whom  Kennaston  was 
enabled  to  view  as  they  appeared  in  the  flesh;  but, 
as  a  rule,  chance  thrust  him  into  the  company  of 
mediocre  people  living  ordinary  lives  amid  sur- 
roundings which  seemed  outlandish  to  him,  but  to 
them  a  matter  of  course.  And  everywhere,  in 
every  age,  it  seemed  to  him,  men  stumbled  amiable 
and  shatter-pated  through  a  jungle  of  miracles, 
blind  to  its  wonderfulness,  and  intent  to  gain  a 
little  money,  food  and  sleep,  a  trinket  or  two, 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

some  rare  snatched  fleeting  moments  of  rantipole 
laughter,  and  at  the  last  a  decent  bed  to  die  in. 
He,  and  he  only,  it  seemed  to  Felix  Kennaston, 
could  see  the  jungle  and  all  its  awe-inspiring 
beauty,  wherethrough  men  scurried  like  feeble- 
minded ants. 

He  often  wondered  whether  any  other  man  had 
been  so  licensed  as  himself;  and  prowling,  as  he 
presently  did,  in  odd  byways  of  printed  matter  — 
for  he  found  the  library  of  his  predecessor  at 
Alcluid  a  mine  rich-veined  with  strangeness  — 
Kennaston  lighted  on  much  that  appeared  to  him 
significant.  Even  such  apparently  unrelated  mat- 
ters as  the  doctrine  of  metempsychosis,  all  the  gro- 
tesque literature  of  witches,  sorcerers  and  familiar 
spirits,  and  of  muses  who  actually  prompted 
artistic  composition  with  audible  voices,  were  be- 
ginning to  fall  into  cloudily-discerned  interlock- 
ing. Kennaston  read  much  nowadays  in  his  dead 
uncle's  books;  and  he  often  wished  that,  even  at 
the  expense  of  Felix  Kennaston's  being  reduced 
again  to  poverty,  it  were  possible  to  revivify  the 
man  who  had  amassed  and  read  these  books. 
Kennaston  wanted  to  talk  with  him. 


IN     PURSUIT     OF     A     WHISPER 

Meanwhile,  Kennaston  read  of  Endymion  and 
Numa,  of  lason  and  Anchises,  of  Tannhauser, 
and  Foulques  Plantagenet,  and  Raymondin  de  la 
Foret,  and  Olger  Danske,  and  other  mortal  men 
to  whom  old  legend-weavers,  as  if  wistfully,  ac- 
credited the  love  of  immortal  mistresses  —  and  of 
less  fortunate  nympholepts,  frail  babbling  planet- 
stricken  folk,  who  had  spied  by  accident  upon  an 
inhuman  loveliness,  and  so,  must  pine  away  con- 
sumed by  foiled  desire  of  a  beauty  which  the 
homes  and  cities  and  the  tilled  places  of  men  did 
not  afford,  and  life  did  not  bring  forth  sufficingly. 
He  read  Talmudic  tales  of  Sulieman-ben-Daoud 
—  even  in  name  transfigured  out  of  any  resem- 
blance to  an  amasser  of  reliable  axioms  —  that 
proud  luxurious  despot  "  who  went  daily  to  the 
comeliest  of  the  spirits  for  wisdom  ";  and  of  Ar- 
thur and  the  Lady  Nimue;  and  of  Thomas  of 
Ercildoune,  whom  the  Queen  of  Faery  drew  from 
the  merchants'  market-place  with  ambiguous 
kindnesses;  and  of  John  Faustus,  who  "  through 
fantasies  and  deep  cogitations"  was  enabled  to 
woo  successfully  a  woman  that  died  long  before 
his  birth,  and  so  won  to  his  love,  as  the  book  re- 

133 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

corded,  "  this  stately  pearl  of  Greece,  fair  Helena, 
the  wife  to  King  Menelaus." 

And,  as  has  been  said,  the  old  idea  of  muses 
who  actually  prompted  artistic  composition,  with 
audible  voices,  took  on  another  aspect.  He  came 
to  suspect  that  other  creative  writers  had  shared 
such  a  divided  life  as  his  was  now,  for  of  this  he 
seemed  to  find  traces  here  and  there.  Coleridge 
offered  at  once  an  arresting  parallel.  Yes,  Ken- 
naston  reflected;  and  Coleridge  had  no  doubt 
spoken  out  in  the  first  glow  of  wonder,  astounded 
into  a  sort  of  treason,  when  he  revealed  how  he 
wrote  Kubla  Khan;  so  that  thus  perhaps  Coleridge 
had  told  far  more  concerning  the  origin  of  this 
particular  poem  than  he  ever  did  as  to  his  later 
compositions.  Then,  also,  I  have  a  volume  of 
Herrick  from  Kennaston's  library  with  curious 
comments  penciled  therein,  relative  to  Lovers 
How  They  Come  and  Part  and  His  Mistress  Call- 
ing Him  to  Elysium;  a  copy  of  Marlowe's  Tragical 
History  of  Doctor  Faustus  is  similarly  annotated; 
and  on  a  fly-leaf  in  Forster's  Life  of  Charles  Dick- 
ens, apropos  of  passages  in  the  first  chapter  of  the 
ninth  book,  Kennaston  has  inscribed  strange  specu- 
134 


IN     PURSUIT     OF     A     WHISPER 

lations  very  ill  suited  to  general  reading.  All 
that  Kennaston  cared  to  print,  however,  concern- 
ing the  hypothesis  he  eventually  evolved,  you  will 
find  in  The  Tinctured  Veil,  where  he  has  nicely  re- 
frained from  too-explicit  writing,  and  —  of  course 
—  does  not  anywhere  pointblank  refer  to  his  per- 
sonal experiences. 

Then  Kennaston  ran  afoul  of  the  Rosicrucians, 
and  their  quaint  dogmas,  which  appeared  so  pre- 
posterous at  first,  took  on  vital  meanings  pres- 
ently; and  here  too  he  seemed  to  surprise  the 
cautious  whispering  of  men  who  neither  cared  nor 
dared  to  speak  with  candor  of  all  they  knew.  It 
seemed  to  him  he  understood  that  whispering 
which  was  everywhere  apparent  in  human  history; 
for  he  too  was  initiate. 

He  wondered  very  often  about  his  uncle.  .  .  , 


135 


F/7 

Of  Truisms:  Treated 
Reasonably 


HE  seemed,  indeed,  to  find  food  for  won- 
der everywhere.     It  was  as  if  he  had 
awakened  from  a  dragging  nightmare  of 
life  made  up  of  unimportant  tasks  and  tedious  use- 
less little  habits,  to  see  life  as  it  really  was,  and  to 
rejoice  in  its  exquisite  wonderfulness. 

How  poignantly  strange  it  was  that  life  could 
afford  him  nothing  save  consciousness  of  the  mo- 
ment immediately  at  hand!  Memory  and  antici- 
pation, whatever  else  they  might  do  —  and  they 
had  important  uses,  of  course,  in  rousing  emotion 
—  yet  did  not  deal  directly  with  reality.  What 
you  regretted,  or  were  proud  of,  having  done  yes- 
terday was  no  more  real  now  than  the  deeds  of 
Caesar  Borgia  or  St.  Paul;  and  what  you  looked 
forward  to  within  the  half-hour  was  as  non-exist- 
ent as  the  senility  of  your  unborn  great-grand- 
children. Never  was  man  brought  into  contact 

136 


TRUISMS:   TREATED   REASONABLY 

with  reality  save  through  the  evanescent  emotions 
and  sensations  of  that  single  moment,  that  infin- 
itesimal fraction  of  a  second,  which  was  passing 
now.  This  commonplace,  so  simple  and  so  old, 
bewildered  Kennaston  when  he  came  unreservedly 
to  recognize  its  truth.  .  .  . 

To  live  was  to  be  through  his  senses  conscious, 
one  by  one,  of  a  restricted  number  of  these  frac- 
tions of  a  second.  Success  in  life,  then,  had  noth- 
ing to  do  with  bank-accounts  or  public  office,  or 
any  step  toward  increasing  the  length  of  one's 
obituary  notices,  but  meant  to  be  engrossed  ut- 
terly by  as  many  as  possible  of  these  instants. 
And  complete  success  required  a  finding,  in  these 
absorbing  instants,  of  employment  for  every 
faculty  he  possessed.  It  was  for  this  that  Ken- 
naston had  always  vaguely  longed;  and  to  this,  if 
only  in  dreams,  he  now  attained. 

If  only  in  dreams  he  debated:  why,  and  was 
he  not  conscious,  now,  in  his  dreams,  of  every  mo- 
ment as  it  fled?  And  corporal  life  in  banks  and 
ballrooms  and  legislative  halls  and  palaces,  no- 
where had  anything  more  than  that  to  offer  mortal 
men. 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

It  is  not  necessary  to  defend  his  course  of 
reasoning;  to  the  contrary,  its  fallacy  is  no  less 
apparent  than  its  conduciveness  to  unbusinesslike 
conclusions.  But  it  is  highly  necessary  to  tell  you 
that,  according  to  Felix  Kennaston's  account,  now, 
turn  by  turn,  he  was  in  Horvendile's  person  rapt 
by  nearly  every  passion,  every  emotion,  the  human 
race  has  ever  known.  True,  throughout  these 
dramas  into  which  chance  plunged  him,  in  that  he 
knew  always  he  was  dreaming,  he  was  at  once 
performer  and  spectator;  but  he  played  with  the 
born  actor's  zest —  feeling  his  part,  as  people  say 
—  and  permitting  the  passion  he  portrayed  to  pos- 
sess him  almost  completely. 

Almost  completely,  be  it  repeated;  for  there 
was  invariably  a  sufficient  sense  of  knowing  he  was 
only  dreaming  to  prevent  entire  abandonment  to 
the  raw  emotion.  Kennaston  preferred  it  thus. 
He  preferred  in  this  more  comely  way  to  play  with 
human  passions,  rather  than,  as  seemed  the  vul- 
gar use,  to  consent  to  become  their  battered  play- 
thing. 

It  pleased  him,  too,  to  be  able  to  have  done 
with  such  sensations  and  emotions  as  did  not  in- 

138 


TRUISMS:        TREATED      REASONABLY 

terest  him;  for  he  had  merely  to  touch  Ettarre, 
and  the  dream  ended.  In  this  fashion  he  would 
very  often  terminate  an  existence  which  was  be- 
coming distasteful  —  resorting  debonairly  to  this 
sort  of  suicide,  and  thus  dismissing  an  era's  social 
orderings  and  its  great  people  as  toys  that,  played 
with,  had  failed  to  amuse  Felix  Kennaston. 


139 


Book  Fourth 


"  But  there  were  dreams  to  sell 

111  didst  thou  buy: 
Life  is  a  dream,  they  tell, 

Waking  to  die. 
Dreaming  a  dream  to  prize, 
Is  wishing  ghosts  to  rise ; 
And,  if  I  had  the  spell 
To  call  the  buried  —  well, 
Which  one  would  I  ?  " 


Economic  Considerations  of 
Piety 


AS  has  been  said,  Kennaston  read  much 
curious  matter  in  his  dead  uncle's  li- 
brary. .  .  . 

But  most  books  —  even  Felix  Kennaston's  own 
little  books  —  did  not  seem  now  to  be  affairs  of 
heavy  moment.  Once  abed,  clasping  his  gleam- 
ing broken  bit  of  metal,  and  the  truthful  history  of 
all  that  had  ever  happened  was,  instead,  Kennas- 
ton's library.  It  was  not  his  to  choose  from  what 
volume  or  on  which  page  thereof  he  would  read; 
accident,  as  it  seemed,  decided  that;  but  the  chance- 
opened  page  lay  unblurred  before  him,  and  he  saw 
it  with  a  clarity  denied  to  other  men  of  his  gener- 
ation. 


Kennaston  stood  by  the  couch  of  Tiberius 
Caesar  as  he  lay  ill  at  Capreae.  Beside  him  hung 
a  memorable  painting,  by  Parrhasius,  which  repre- 

143 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

sented  the  virgin  Atalanta  in  the  act  of  according 
very  curious  assuagements  to  her  lover's  ardor. 
Charicles,  a  Greek  physician,  was  telling  the  Em- 
peror of  a  new  religious  sect  that  had  arisen  in 
Judea,  and  of  the  persecutions  these  disciples  of 
Christus  were  enduring.  Old  Caesar  listened, 
made  grave  clucking  noises  of  disapproval. 

"  It  is,  instead,  a  religion  that  should  be  fos- 
tered. The  man  preached  peace.  It  is  what  my 
father  before  me  strove  for,  what  I  have  striven 
for,  what  my  successors  must  strive  for.  Peace 
alone  may  preserve  Rome :  the  empire  is  too  large, 
a  bubble  blown  so  big  and  tenuous  that  the  first 
shock  will  disrupt  it  in  suds.  Pilate  did  well  to 
crucify  the  man,  else  we  could  not  have  made  a 
God  of  him;  but  the  persecution  of  these  fol- 
lowers of  Christus  must  cease.  This  Nazarene 
preached  the  same  doctrine  that  I  have  always 
preached.  I  shall  build  him  a  temple.  The 
rumors  concerning  him  lack  novelty,  it  is  true :  this 
God  born  of  a  mortal  woman  is  the  old  legend 
of  Dionysos  and  Mithra  and  Hercules,  a  little 
pulled  about;  Gautama  also  was  tempted  in  a 
wilderness ;  Prometheus  served  long  ago  as  man's 
144 


ECONOMIC     CONSIDERATIONS     OF     PIETY 

scapegoat  under  divine  anger;  and  the  cult  of 
Pollux  and  Castor,  and  of  Adonis,  has  made  these 
resurrection  stories  hackneyed.  In  fine,  Char- 
icles,  you  have  brought  me  a  woefully  inartistic 
jumble  of  old  tales;  but  the  populace  prefers  old 
tales,  they  delight  to  be  told  what  they  have  heard 
already.  I  shall  certainly  build  Christus  a 
temple." 

So  he  ran  on,  devising  the  reception  of  Christ 
into  the  Roman  pantheon,  as  a  minor  deity  at  first, 
and  thence,  if  the  receipts  at  his  temple  justified  it, 
to  be  raised  to  greater  eminence.  Tiberius  saw 
large  possibilities  in  the  worship  of  this  new  God, 
both  from  a  doctrinal  and  a  money-making  stand- 
point. Then  Caesar  yawned,  and  ordered  that  a 
company  of  his  Spintriae  be  summoned  to  his 
chamber,  to  amuse  him  with  their  unnatural  diver- 
sions. 

But  Charicles  had  listened  in  horror,  for  he  was 
secretly  a  Christian,  and  knew  that  the  blood  of 
the  martyrs  is  the  seed  of  the  church.  He  fore- 
saw that,  without  salutary  discouragement,  the 
worship  of  Christus  would  never  amount  to  more 
than  the  social  fad  of  a  particular  season,  just  as 

145 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

that  of  Cybele  and  that  of  Heliogabalus  had  been 
modish  in  different  years;  and  would  afterward 
dwindle,  precisely  as  these  cults  had  done,  into 
shrugged-at  old-fashionedness.  Then,  was  it  not 
written  that  they  only  were  assuredly  blessed  who 
were  persecuted  for  righteousness'  sake?  —  Why, 
martyrdom  was  the  one  certain  road  to  Heaven; 
and  a  religion  which  is  patronized  by  potentates, 
obviously,  breeds  no  martyrs. 

So  Charicles  mingled  poison  in  Caesar's  drink, 
that  Caesar  might  die,  and  crazed  Caligula  suc- 
ceed him,  to  put  all  Christians  to  the  sword.  And 
Charicles  young  Caius  Caesar  Caligula  —  Child  of 
the  Camp,  Father  of  Armies,  Beloved  of  the  Gods 
—  killed  first  of  all. 

Then  a  lean  man,  white-robed,  and  clean-shaven 
as  to  his  head,  was  arranging  a  complicated  toy. 
He  labored  in  a  gray-walled  room,  lit  only  by  one 
large  circular  window  opening  upon  the  sea. 
There  was  an  alcove  in  this  room,  and  in  the 
alcove  stood  a  large  painted  statue. 

This  prefigured  a  crowned  woman,  in  bright 
parti-colored  garments  of  white  and  red  and  yel- 
146 


ECONOMIC     CONSIDERATIONS     OF     PIETY 

low,  under  a  black  mantle  embroidered  with  small 
sparkling  stars.  Upon  the  woman's  forehead 
was  a  disk,  like  a  round  glittering  mirror;  seen 
closer,  it  was  engraved  with  tiny  characters,  and 
Kennaston  viewed  it  with  a  thrill  of  recognition. 
To  the  woman's  right  were  vipers  rising  from  the 
earth,  and  to  the  left  were  stalks  of  ripe  corn,  all 
in  their  proper  colors.  In  one  hand  she  carried  a 
golden  boat,  from  which  a  coiled  asp  raised  its 
head  threateningly.  From  the  other  hand 
dangled  three  or  four  slender  metal  rods,  which 
were  not  a  part  of  the  statue,  but  were  loosely 
attached  to  it,  so  that  the  least  wind  caused  them 
to  move  and  jangle.  There  was  nothing  what- 
ever in  the  gray-walled  room  save  this  curious 
gleaming  statue  and  the  lean  man  and  the  me- 
chanical toy  on  which  he  labored. 

He  explained  its  workings,  willingly  enough. 
See  now!  you  kindled  a  fire  in  this  little  cube- 
shaped  box.  The  air  inside  expanded  through 
this  pipe  into  the  first  jar  of  water,  and  forced 
the  water  out,  through  this  other  pipe,  into  this 
tiny  bucket.  The  bucket  thus  became  heavier 
and  heavier,  till  its  weight  at  last  pulled  down  the 

147 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

string  by  which  the  bucket  was  swung  over  a 
pulley,  and  so,  moved  this  lever. 

Oh,  yes,  the  notion  was  an  old  one;  the  priest 
admitted  he  had  copied  the  toy  from  one  made  by 
Hero  of  Alexandria,  who  died  years  ago.  Still, 
it  was  an  ingenious  trifle :  moreover  —  and  here 
was  the  point  —  enlarge  the  scale,  change  the  cube- 
shaped  box  into  the  temple  altar,  fasten  the  lever 
to  the  temple  doors,  and  you  had  the  mechanism 
for  a  miracle.  People  had  only  to  offer  burnt 
sacrifices  to  the  Goddess,  and  before  their  eyes  the 
All-Mother,  the  holy  and  perpetual  preserver  of 
the  human  race,  would  stoop  to  material  thau- 
maturgy,  and  would  condescend  to  animate  her 
sacred  portals. 

"  We  very  decidedly  need  some  striking  mira- 
cle to  advertise  our  temple,"  he  told  Kennaston. 
u  Folk  are  flocking  like  sheep  after  these  bar- 
barous new  Galilean  heresies.  But  the  All- 
Mother  is  compassionate  to  human  frailty;  and 
this  device  will  win  back  many  erring  feet  to  the 
true  way." 

And  Kennaston  saw  there  were  tears  in  this 
148 


ECONOMIC     CONSIDERATIONS     OF     PIETY 

man's  dark  sad  eyes.  The  trickster  was  striving 
to  uphold  the  faith  of  his  fathers;  and  in  the  at- 
tempt he  had  constructed  a  practicable  steam- 
engine. 


149 


Deals  With  Pen  Scratches 


THEN  Kennaston  was  in  Alexandria  when 
John  the  Grammarian  pleaded  with  the 
victorious  Arabian  general  Amrou  to 
spare  the  royal  library,  the  sole  repository  at 
this  period  of  many  of  the  masterworks  of  Greek 
and  Roman  literature. 

But  Amrou  only  laughed,  with  a  practical  man's 
contempt  for  such  matters.  "  The  Koran  con- 
tains all  that  is  necessary  to  salvation:  if  these 
books  teach  as  the  Koran  teaches  they  are  super- 
fluous; if  they  contain  anything  contrary  to  the 
Koran  they  ought  to  be  destroyed.  Let  them 
be  used  as  fuel  for  the  public  baths." 

And  this  was  done.  Curious,  very  curious,  it 
was  to  Kennaston,  to  witness  this  utilitarian  em- 
ployment of  a  nation's  literature;  and  it  moved 
him  strangely.  He  had  come  at  this  season  to 
believe  that  individual  acts  can  count  for  noth- 
ing, in  the  outcome  of  things.  Whatever  might 
150 


DEALS     WITH     PEN     SCRATCHES 

happen  upon  earth,  during  the  existence  of  that 
midge  among  the  planets,  affected  infmitesimally, 
if  at  all,  the  universe  of  which  earth  was  a  part 
so  inconceivably  tiny.  To  figure  out  the  impor- 
tance in  this  universe  of  the  deeds  of  one  or  an- 
other nation  temporarily  clustering  on  earth's  sur- 
face, when  you  considered  that  neither  the  doings 
of  Assyria  or  of  Rome,  or  of  any  kingdom,  had 
ever  extended  a  thousand  feet  from  earth's  sur- 
face, was  a  task  too  delicate  for  human  reason. 
For  human  faculties  to  attempt  to  estimate  the 
individuals  of  this  nation,  in  the  light  of  the  rela- 
tive importance  of  their  physical  antics  while  liv- 
ing, was  purely  and  simply  ridiculous.  To  as- 
sume, as  did  so  many  well-meaning  persons,  that 
Omniscience  devoted  eternity  to  puzzling  out  just 
these  minutiae,  seemed  at  the  mildest  to  postulate 
in  Omniscience  a  queer  mania  for  trivialities. 
With  the  passage  of  time,  whatever  a  man  had 
done,  whether  for  good  or  evil,  with  the  man's 
bodily  organs,  left  the  man's  parish  unaffected: 
only  man's  thoughts  and  dreams  could  outlive 
him,  in  any  serious  sense,  and  these  might  sur- 
vive with  perhaps  augmenting  influence:  so  that 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

Kennaston  had  come  to  think  artistic  creation  in 
words  —  since  marble  and  canvas  inevitably  per- 
ished —  was  the  one,  possibly,  worth-while  em- 
ployment of  human  life.  But  here  was  a  crude 
corporal  deed  which  bluntly  destroyed  thoughts, 
and  annihilated  dreams  by  wholesale.  To  Ken- 
naston this  seemed  :the  one  real  tragedy  that 
could  be  staged  on  earth.  .  .  . 

Curious,  very  curious,  it  was  to  Kennaston,  to 
see  the  burning  of  sixty-three  plays  written  by 
.^Eschylus,  of  a  hundred  and  six  by  Sophocles,  and 
of  fifty-five  by  Euripides  —  masterworks  eter- 
nally lost,  which,  as  Kennaston  knew,  the  world 
would  affect  to  deplore  eternally,  whatever  might 
be  the  world's  real  opinion  in  the  matter. 

But  of  these  verbal  artificers  something  at  least 
was  to  endure.  They  would  fare  better  than 
Agathon  and  Ion  and  Achasus,  their  admitted 
equals  in  splendor,  whose  whole  life-work  was 
passing,  at  the  feet  of  Horvendile,  into  complete 
oblivion.  There,  too,  were  perishing  all  the  writ- 
ings of  the  Pleiad  —  the  noble  tragedies  of  Ho- 
merus,  and  Sositheus,  and  Lycophron,  and  Alex- 
152 


DEALS     WITH     PEN     SCRATCHES 

ander,  and  Philiscus,  and  Sosiphanes,  and  Di- 
onysides.  All  the  great  comic  poets,  too,  were 
burned  pellmell  with  these  —  Telecleides,  Her- 
mippus,  Eupolis,  Antiphanes,  Ameipsas,  Lysippus, 
and  Menander  — "  whom  nature  mimicked,"  as 
the  phrase  was.  And  here,  posting  to  oblitera- 
tion, went  likewise  Thespis,  and  Pratinas,  and 
Phrynichus  —  and  Choerilus,  whom  cultured  per- 
sons had  long  ranked  with  Homer.  Nothing  was 
to  remain  of  any  of  these  save  the  bare  name,  and 
even  this  would  be  known  only  to  pedants.  All 
these,  spurred  by  the  poet's  ageless  monomania, 
had  toiled  toward,  and  had  attained,  the  poet's 
ageless  goal  —  to  write  perfectly  of  beautiful  hap- 
penings :  and  of  this  action's  normal  by-product, 
which  is  immortality  in  the  mouths  and  minds  of 
succeeding  generations,  all  these  were  being 
robbed,  by  the  circumstance  that  parchment  is  in- 
flammable. 

Here  was  beauty,  and  wit,  and  learning,  and 
genius,   being  wasted  —  quite  wantonly  —  never  ' 
to  be  recaptured,  never  to  be  equaled  again  (de- 
spite the  innumerable  painstaking  penmen  destined 

153 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

to  fret  the  hearts  of  unborn  wives),  and  never,  in 
the  outcome,  to  be  thought  of  as  a  very  serious 
loss  to  anybody,  after  all.  .  .  . 

These  book-rolls  burned  with  great  rapidity, 
crackling  cheerily  as  the  garnered  wisdom  of 
Cato's  octogenarian  life  dissolved  in  puffs  of 
smoke,  and  the  wit  of  Sosipater  blazed  for  the 
last  time  in  heating  a  pint  of  water.  .  .  .  But 
then  in  Parma  long  afterward  Kennaston  ob- 
served a  monk  erasing  a  song  of  Sappho's  from 
a  parchment  on  which  the  monk  meant  to  inscribe 
a  feeble  little  Latin  hymn  of  his  own  composition; 
in  an  obscure  village  near  Alexandria  Kennaston 
saw  the  only  existent  copy  of  the  Mimes  of  Her- 
ondas  crumpled  up  and  used  as  packing  for  a 
mummy-case;  and  at  Prior  Park  Kennaston 
watched  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Barnes,  then  acting  as 
cook  for  Dr.  William  Warburton,  destroy  in  mak- 
ing piecrust  the  unique  manuscript  copies  of  three 
of  Shakespeare's  dramas,  which  had  never  been 
printed. 

And  —  conceding  Heaven  to  be  an  actual  place, 
and  attainment  of  its  felicities  to  be  the  object  of 
human  life  —  Kennaston  could  not,  after  all,  de- 
154 


DEALS     WITH     PEN     SCRATCHES 

tect  any  fault  in  Amrou's  logic.  ./Esthetic  con- 
siderations could,  in  that  event,  but  lead  to  profit- 
less time-wasting  where  every  moment  was  pre- 
cious. 


155 


By-Products  of  Rational 
Endeavor 

THEN  again  Kennaston  stood  in  a  stone- 
walled apartment,  like  a  cell,  wherein 
there  was  a  furnace  and  much  wreckage. 
A  contemplative  friar  was  regarding  the  disorder 
about  him  with  disapproval,  the  while  he  sucked 
at  two  hurt  fingers. 

*  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Old  Legion  con- 
spires to  hinder  the  great  work,"  he  considered. 

"  And  what  is  the  great  work,  father?"  Ken- 
naston asked  him. 

"  To  find  the  secret  of  eternal  life,  my  son. 
What  else  is  lacking?  Man  approaches  to  God 
in  all  things  save  this,  Imaginis  imago,  created 
after  God's  image.  But  as  yet,  by  reason  of  his 
mortality,  man  shudders  in  a  world  that  is  ar- 
rayed against  him.  Thus,  the  heavens  threaten 
with  winds  and  lightnings,  with  plague-breeding 
meteors  and  the  unfriendly  aspect  of  planets;  the 


BY-PRODUCTS    OF    RATIONAL    ENDEAVOR 

big  seas  molest  with  waves  and  inundations, 
stealthily  drowning  cities  overnight,  and  sucking 
down  tall  navies  as  a  child  gulps  sugarplums; 
whereas  how  many  plants  and  gums  and  seeds 
bear  man's  destruction  in  their  tiny  hearts !  what 
soulless  beasts  of  the  field  and  of  the  wood  are 
everywhere  enleagued  in  endless  feud  against 
him,  with  tusks  and  teeth,  with  nails  and  claws 
and  venomous  stings,  made  sharp  for  man's  de- 
molishment !  Thus  all  struggle  miserably,  like 
hunted  persons  under  a  sentence  of  death  that 
may  at  best  be  avoided  for  a  little  while.  And 
manifestly,  this  is  not  as  it  should  be." 

*  Yet  I  much  fear  it  is  so  ordered,  father." 
The  old  man  said  testily:  "  I  repeat,  for  your 
better  comfort,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Satan 
alone  conspires  to  hinder  the  great  work.  No; 
it  would  be  abuse  of  superstition  to  conceive,  as 
would  be  possible  for  folk  of  slender  courage, 
that  the  finger  of  heaven  has  to-day  unloosed  this 
destruction,  to  my  bodily  hurt  and  spiritual  ad- 
monition." Kennaston  could  see,  though,  that 
the  speaker  half  believed  this  might  be  exactly 
what  had  happened.  "  For  I  am  about  no  vaunt- 

157 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

ing  transgression  of  man's  estate;  I  do  but  seek 
to  recover  his  lost  heritage.  You  will  say  to  me, 
it  is  written  that  never  shall  any  man  be  one  day 
old  in  the  sight  of  God? —  Yet  it  is  likewise 
written  that  unto  God  a  thousand  years  are  but 
one  day.  For  this  period  of  time,  then,  may 
each  man  righteously  demand  that  death  delay  to 
enact  the  midwife  to  his  second  birth.  It  advan- 
tages not  to  contend  that  even  in  the  heyday  of 
patriarchs  few  approached  to  such  longevity;  for 
Moses,  relinquishing  to  silence  all  save  the  prog- 
eny of  Seth,  nowhere  directly  tells  us  that  some 
of  the  seed  of  Cain  did  not  outlive  Methuselah. 
Yea,  and  our  common  parent,  Adam,  was  cre- 
ated in  the  perfect  age  of  man,  which  then  fell 
not  short  of  one  hundred  years,  since  at  less  an- 
tiquity did  none  of  the  antediluvian  fathers  beget 
issue,  as  did  Adam  in  the  same  year  breath  was 
given  him;  and  the  years  of  Adam's  life  were  nine 
hundred  and  thirty;  whereby  it  is  a  reasonable 
conceit  of  learned  persons  to  compute  him  to 
have  exceeded  a  thousand  years  in  age,  if  not  in 
duration  of  existence.  Now,  it  is  written  that  we 
shall  all  die  as  Adam  died;  and  caution  should 


BY-PRODUCTS    OF    RATIONAL    ENDEAVOR 

not  scruple  to  affirm  this  is  an  excellent  dark  say- 
ing, prophetic  of  that  day  when  no  man  need 
outdo  Adam  in  celerity  to  put  by  his  flesh." 

Then  Kennaston  found  the  alchemist  had  been 
compounding  nitrum  of  Memphis  with  sulphur, 
mixing  in  a  little  willow  charcoal  to  make  the 
whole  more  friable,  and  that  the  powder  had  ex- 
ploded. The  old  man  was  now  interested,  less 
in  the  breakage,  than  in  the  horrible  noise  this 
accident  had  occasioned. 

4  The  mixture  might  be  used  in  court-pageants 
and  miracle-plays,"  he  estimated,  "  to  indicate  the 
entrance  of  Satan,  or  the  fall  of  Sodom,  or  Her- 
od's descent  into  the  Pit,  and  so  on.  Yes,  I  shall 
thriftily  sell  this  secret,  and  so  get  money  to  go 
on  with  the  great  work." 

Seeking  to  find  the  means  of  making  life  per- 
petual, he  had  accidentally  discovered  gunpowder. 


Then  at  Valladolid  an  age-stricken  seaman, 
wracked  with  gout,  tossed  in  a  mean  bed  and 
grumbled  to  bare  walls.  He,  "  the  Admiral," 
was  neglected  by  King  Philip,  the  broth  was  unfit 

159 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

for  a  dog's  supper,  his  son  Diego  was  a  laggard 
fool.  Thus  the  old  fellow  mumbled. 

Ingratitude  everywhere !  and  had  not  he,  "  the 
Admiral  " — "  the  Admiral  of  Mosquito  Land," 
as  damnable  street-songs  miscalled  him,  he  whim- 
pered, in  a  petulant  gust  of  self-pity  —  had  not 
he  found  out  at  last  a  way  by  sea  to  the  provinces 
of  the  Great  Khan  and  the  treasures  of  Cipango? 
Give  him  another  fleet,  and  he  would  demonstrate 
what  malignant  fools  were  his  enemies.  He 
would  convert  the  Khan  from  Greek  heresies;  or 
else  let  the  Holy  Inquisition  be  established  in 
Cipango,  the  thumbscrew  and  the  stake  be  fit- 
tingly utilized  there  ad  majorem  Dei  gloriam  — 
all  should  redound  to  the  credit  of  King  Philip, 
both  temporal  and  celestial.  And  what  wealth, 
too,  a  capable  emissary  would  bring  back  to  his 
Majesty  —  what  cargoes  of  raw  silks,  of  gold 
and  precious  gems,  ravished  from  Kanbalu  and 
Taidu,  those  famed  marvelous  cities !  .  .  .  But 
there  was  only  ingratitude  and  folly  everywhere, 
and  the  broth  was  cold.  .  .  . 

Thus  the  broken  adventurer,  Cristoforo  Co- 
lombo, mumbled.  He  had  doubled  the  world's 
1 60 


BY-PRODUCTS    OF    RATIONAL    ENDEAVOR 

size  and  resources,  in  his  attempts  to  find  some 
defenseless  nation  which  could  be  plundered  with 
impunity;  and  he  was  dying  in  ignorance  of  what 
his  endeavors  had  achieved. 


And  Kennaston  was  at  Blickling  Hall  when 
King  Henry  read  the  Pope's  letter  which  threat- 
ened excommunication.  "  Nan,  Nan,"  the  King 
said,  "  this  is  a  sorry  business." 

"  Sire,"  says  Mistress  Boleyn,  saucily,  "  and  am 
I  not  worth  a  little  abuse?  " 

"  You  deserve  some  quite  certainly,"  he  agrees; 
and  his  bright  lecherous  pig's  eyes  twinkled,  and 
he  guffawed. 

"  Defy  the  Pope,  then,  sire,  and  marry  your 
true  love.  Let  us  snap  fingers  at  Gulio  de  Me- 
dici — " 

"  Faith,  and  not  every  lass  can  bring  eleven 
fingers  to  the  task,"  the  King  put  in. 

She  tweaked  his  fine  gold  beard,  and  Kennas- 
ton saw  that  upon  her  left  hand  there  was  really 
an  extra  finger. 

"  My  own  sweetheart,"  says  she,  "  if  you  would 
have  my  person 'as  much  at  your  disposal  as  my 

161 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

heart  is,  we  must  part  company  with  Rome. 
Then,  too,  at  the  cost  of  a  few  Latin  phrases, 
some  foolish  candle-snuffing  and  a  little  bell-ring- 
ing, you  may  take  for  your  own  all  the  fat  abbey- 
lands  in  these  islands,  and  sell  them  for  a  great 
deal  of  money,"  she  pointed  out. 

So,  between  lust  and  greed,  the  King  was  per- 
suaded. In  the  upshot,  "  because  " —  as  was  duly 
set  forth  to  his  lieges  — "  a  virtuous  monarch 
ought  to  surround  his  throne  with  many  peers  of 
the  worthiest  of  both  sexes,"  Mistress  Anne 
Boleyn  was  created  Marchioness  of  Pembroke,  in 
her  own  right,  with  a  reversion  of  the  title  and  es- 
tates to  her  offspring,  whether  such  might  happen 
to  be  legitimate  or  not.  A  pension  of  £1,000 
per  annum,  with  gold,  silver  and  parcel-gilt  plate 
to  the  value  of  £1,188,  was  likewise  awarded  her: 
and  the  King,  by  thus  piously  defying  Romish  er- 
ror, earned  the  abbey-lands,  as  well  as  the  key 
of  a  certain  bed-chamber,  and  the  eternal  appro- 
bation of  zealous  Protestants,  for  thus  inaugurat- 
ing religious  liberty. 


162 


IV 

"Epper  Si  Muove 


THESE  ironies  Kennaston  witnessed  among 
many  others,  as  he  read  in  this  or  that 
chance-opened    page     from     the     past. 
Everywhere,  it  seemed  to  him,  men  had  labored 
blindly,    at  flat  odds  with   rationality,    and  had 
achieved  everything  of  note  by  accident.     Every- 
where he  saw  reason  to  echo  the  cry  of  Maugis 
d'Aigremont  —     "  It  is  very  strange  how  affairs 
fall  out  in  this  world  of  ours,  so  that  a  man  may 
discern  no  plan  or  purpose  anywhere." 

Here  was  the  astounding  fact:  the  race  did 
go  forward;  the  race  did  achieve;  and  in  every 
way  the  race  grew  better.  Progress  through  ir- 
rational and  astounding  blunders,  whose  outrag- 
eousness  bedwarfed  the  wildest  cliches  of  ro- 
mance, was  what  Kennaston  found  everywhere. 
All  this,  then,  also  was  foreplanned,  just  as  all 
happenings  at  Storisende  had  been,  in  his  puny 
romance;  and  the  puppets  here,  too,  moved  as 

163 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

they  thought  of  their  own  volition,  but  really  in 
order  to  serve  a  denouement  in  which  many  of 
them  had  not  any  personal  part  or  interest.  .  .  . 

And  always  the  puppets  moved  toward  greater 
efficiency  and  comeliness.  The  puppet-shifter 
appeared  to  seek  at  once  utility  and  artistic  self- 
expression.  So  the  protoplasm  —  that  first  im- 
perceptible pinhead  of  living  matter  —  had  be- 
come a  fish;  the  fish  had  become  a  batrachian,  the 
batrachian  a  reptile,  the  reptile  a  mammal;  thus 
had  the  puppets  continuously  been  reshaped,  into 
more  elaborate  forms  more  captivating  to  the 
eye,  until  amiable  and  shatter-pated  man  stood 
erect  in  the  world.  And  man,  in  turn,  had 
climbed  a  long  way  from  gorillaship,  however 
far  he  was  as  yet  from  godhead  —  blindly  mov- 
ing always,  like  fish  and  reptile,  toward  unap- 
prehended  loftier  goals. 

But,  just  as  men's  lives  came  to  seem  to  Ken- 
naston  like  many  infinitesimal  threads  woven  into 
the  pattern  of  human  destiny,  so  Kennaston  grew 
to  suspect  that  the  existence  of  mankind  upon 
earth  was  but  an  incident  in  the  unending  struggle 
of  life  to  find  a  home  in  the  universe.  Human 
164 


<    <    E    P    P    E    R       SI       MUOVE 

inhabitancy  was  not  even  a  very  important  phase 
in  the  world's  history,  perhaps;  a  scant  score  or 
so  of  centuries  ago  there  had  been  no  life  on 
earth,  and  presently  the  planet  would  be  a  silent 
naked  frozen  clod.  Would  this  sphere  then  have 
served  its  real  purpose  of  being,  by  having  af- 
forded foothold  to  life  for  a  few  aeons? 

He  could  not  tell.  But  Kennaston  contem- 
plated sidereal  space  full  of  such  frozen  worlds, 
where  life  seemed  to  have  flourished  for  a  while 
and  to  have  been  dispossessed  —  and  full,  too,  of 
glowing  suns,  with  their  huge  satellites,  all  slowly 
cooling  and  congealing  into  fitness  for  life's  oc- 
cupancy. Life  would  tarry  there  also,  he  re- 
flected; and  thence  also*  life  would  be  evicted. 
For  life  was  not  a  part  of  the  universe,  not  a 
product  of  the  universe  at  all  perhaps,  but,  rather, 
an  intruder  into  the  cosmic  machinery,  which 
moved  without  any  consideration  of  life's  needs. 
Like  a  bird  striving  to  nest  in  a  limitless  engine, 
insanely  building  among  moving  wheels  and  cogs 
and  pistons  and  pulley-bands,  whose  moving  to- 
ward their  proper  and  intended  purposes  inevita- 
bly swept  away  each  nest  before  completion  — 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

so  it  might  be  that  life  passed  from  moving  world 
to  world,  found  transitory  foothold,  began  to 
build,  and  was  driven  out. 

What  was  it  that  life  sought  to  rear?  —  what 
was  the  purpose  of  this  endless  endeavor,  of 
which  the  hatching  of  an  ant  or  the  begetting  of 
an  emperor  was  equally  a  by-product?  and  of 
which  the  existence  of  Felix  Kennaston  was  a 
manifestation  past  conceiving  in  its  unimportance? 
Toward  what  did  life  aspire?  —  that  force  which 
moved  in  Felix  Kennaston,  and  thus  made  Felix 
Kennaston  also  an  intruder,  a  temporary  visitor, 
in  the  big  moving  soulless  mechanism  of  earth 
and  water  and  planets  and  suns  and  interlocking 
solar  systems? 

"  To  answer  that  question  must  be  my  modest 
attempt,"  he  decided.  "  In  fine  —  why  is  a  Ken- 
naston? The  query  has  a  humorous  ring  un- 
doubtedly, in  so  far  as  it  is  no  little  suggestive  of 
the  spinning  mouse  that  is  the  higher  the  fewer 
—  but,  after  all,  it  voices  the  sole  question  in 
which  I  personally  am  interested.  .  *  .*' 


166 


<    <    E    P    P    E    R       SI       MUOVE 

"Why  is  a  Kennaston?"  he  asked  himself  — 
thus  whimsically  voicing  the  inquiry  as  to  whether 
human  beings  were  intended  for  any  especial  pur- 
pose. Most  of  us  find  it  more  comfortable,  upon 
the  whole,  to  stave  off  such  queries  —  with  a  jest, 
a  shrug,  or  a  Scriptural  quotation,  as  best  suits 
personal  taste;  but  Kennaston  was  "queer" 
enough  to  face  the  situation  quite  gravely.  Here 
was  he,  the  individual,  very  possibly  placed  on  — 
at  all  events,  infesting  —  a  particular  planet  for  - 
a  considerable  number  of  years;  the  planet  was 
so  elaborately  constructed,  so  richly  clothed  with 
trees  and  valleys  and  uplands  and  running  waters 
and  multitudinary  grass-blades,  and  the  body  that 
housed  Felix  Kennaston  was  so  intricately  wrought 
with  tiny  bones  and  veins  and  sinews,  with  sock- 
ets and  valves  and  levers,  and  little  hairs  which 
grew  upon  the  body  like  grass-blades  about  the 
earth,  that  it  seemed  unreasonable  to  suppose  this 
much  cunning  mechanism  had  been  set  agoing  aim- 
lessly: and  so,  he  often  wondered  if  he  was  not 
perhaps  expected  to  devote  these  years  of  human 
living  to  some  intelligible  purpose? 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

Religion,  of  course,  assured  him  that  the  an- 
swer to  his  query  was  written  explicitly,  in  vari- 
ous books,  in  very  dissimilar  forms.  But  Kennas- 
ton  could  find  little  to  attract  him  in  any  theory 
of  the  universe  based  upon  direct  revelations  from 
heaven.  Conceding  that  divinity  had  actually 
stated  so-and-so,  from  Sinai  or  Delphi  or  Mecca, 
and  had  been  reported  without  miscomprehension 
or  error,  there  was  no  particular  reason  for  pre- 
suming that  divinity  had  spoken  veraciously :  and, 
indeed,  all  available  analogues  went  to  show  that 
nothing  in  nature  dealt  with  its  inferiors  candidly. 
To  liken  the  relationship  to  the  intercourse  of  a 
father  with  his  children,  as  did  all  revealed  reli- 
gions with  queer  uniformity,  was  at  best  a  two- 
edged  simile,  in  that  it  suggested  a  possible  amia- 
bility of  intention  combined  with  inevitable  du- 
plicity. The  range  of  an  earthly  father's  habit- 
ual deceptions,  embracing  the  source  of  life  and 
Christmas  presents  on  one  side  and  his  own  falli- 
bility on  the  other,  was  wide  enough  to  make  the 
comparison  suspicious.  When  fathers  were  at 
their  worst  they  punished;  and  when  in  their 
kindliest  and  most  expansive  moods,  why,  then  it 
1 68 


<<EPPER       SI       MUOVE 

was  —  precisely  —  that  they  told  their  children 
fairy-stories.  It  seemed  to  Kennaston,  for  a 
while,  that  all  religions  ended  in  this  blind-alley. 

To  exercise  for  an  allotted  period  divinely-rec- 
ommended qualities  known  as  virtues,  and  to  be 
rewarded  therefor,  by  an  immortal  score-keeper, 
appeared  a  rather  childish  performance  all 
around.  Yet  every  religion  agreed  in  asserting 
that  such  was  the  course  of  human  life  at  its  no- 
blest; and  to  believe  matters  were  thus  arranged 
indisputably  satisfied  an  innate  craving  of  men's 
natures,  as  Kennaston  was  privileged  to  see  for 
himself. 

Under  all  theocracies  the  run  of  men  proved 
much  the  same:  as  has  been  said,  it  was  for  the 
most  part  with  quite  ordinary  people  that  Hor- 
vendile  dealt  in  dreams.  The  Roman  citizenry, 
for  instance,  he  found  did  not  devote  existence, 
either  under  the  Republic  or  the  Empire,  to  shout- 
ing in  unanimous  response  to  metrical  declama- 
tions, and  worrying  over  their  own  bare  legs,  or 
in  other  ways  conform  to  the  best  traditions  of  lit- 
erature and  the  stage;  nor  did  the  Athenians  cor- 
robate  their  dramatists  by  talking  perpetually  of 

169 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

the  might  of  Zeus  or  Aphrodite,  any  more  than 
motormen  and  stockbrokers  conversed  continually 
of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Substantial  people  every- 
where worshiped  at  their  accustomed  temple  at 
accustomed  intervals,  and  then  put  the  matter  out 
of  mind,  in  precisely  the  fashion  of  any  reputable 
twentieth-century  church-goer.  Meanwhile  they 
had  their  business-affairs,  their  sober  chats  on 
weather  probabilities,  their  staid  diversions  (which 
everywhere  bored  them  frightfully),  their  family 
jokes,  their  best  and  second-best  clothes,  their  flir- 
tations, their  petty  snobbishnesses,  and  their  per- 
fectly irrational  faith  in  Omnipotence  and  in  the 
general  kindliness  of  Omnipotence  —  all  these 
they  had,  and  made  play  with,  to  round  out  living. 
Ritualistic  worship  everywhere  seemed  to  be  of 
the  nature  of  a  conscious  outing,  of  a  conscious  de- 
parture from  everyday  life;  it  was  generally  felt 
that  well-balanced  people  would  not  permit  such 
jaunts  to  interfere  with  their  business-matters  or 
home-ties;  but  there  was  no  doubt  men  did  not 
like  to  live  without  religion  and  religion's  promise 
of  a  less  trivial  and  more  ordered  and  symmetrical 
existence  —  to-morrow. 
170 


<    <    E    P    P    E    R       SI       MUOVE 

Meanwhile,  men  were  to  worry,  somehow, 
through  to-day  —  doing  as  infrequent  evil  as  they 
conveniently  could,  exercising  as  much  bravery  and 
honesty  and  benevolence  as  they  happened  to  pos- 
sess, through  a  life  made  up  of  unimportant  tasks 
and  tedious  useless  little  habits.  Men  felt  the 
routine  to  be  niggardly :  but  to-morrow  —  as  their 
priests  and  bonzes,  their  flamens  and  imauns,  their 
medicine  men  and  popes  and  rectors,  were  unani- 
mous —  would  be  quite  different. 

To-day  alone  was  real.  Never  was  man 
brought  into  contact  with  reality  save  through  the 
evanescent  emotions  and  sensations  of  that  single 
moment,  that  infinitesimal  fraction  of  a  second, 
which  was  passing  now  —  and  it  was  this,  pre- 
cisely, that  you  were  to  disregard.  Such  was  the 
burden  of  all  dead  and  lingering  faiths  alike. 
Here  was,  perhaps,  only  another  instance  of  man- 
kind's abhorrence  of  actualities;  and  man's  quaint 
dislike  of  facing  reality  was  here  disguised  as  a 
high  moral  principle.  That  was  why  all  art, 
which  strove  to  make  the  sensations  of  a  moment 
soul-satisfying,  was  dimly  felt  to  be  irreligious. 
For  art  performed  what  religion  only  promised. 

171 


V 

Evolution  of  a  Vestryman 


BUT,  much  as  man's  religion  looked  to  a 
more  ordered  and  symmetrical  existence 
to-morrow,  just  so,  upon  another  scale, 
man's  daily  life  seemed  a  continuous  looking-for- 
ward  to  a  terrestrial  to-morrow.  Kennaston 
could  find  in  the  past  —  even  he,  who  was  priv- 
ileged to  view  the  past  in  its  actuality,  rather  than 
through  the  distorting  media  of  books  and  na- 
tional pride  —  no  suggestion  as  to  what,  if  any- 
thing, he  was  expected  to  do  while  his  physical 
life  lasted,  or  to  what,  if  anything,  this  life  was  a 
prelude.  Yet  that  to-day  was  only  a  dull  over- 
ture to  to-morrow  seemed  in  mankind  an  instinc- 
tive belief.  All  life  everywhere,  as  all  people 
spent  it,  was  in  preparation  for  something  that  was 
to  happen  to-morrow.  This  was  as  true  of  An- 
tioch  as  Lichfield,  as  much  the  case  with  Charle- 
magne and  Sardanapalus,  with  Agamemnon  and 
Tiglath-Pileser,  as  with  Felix  Kennaston. 
172 


EVOLUTION     OF     A     VESTRYMAN 

Kennaston  considered  his  own  life.  ...  In 
childhood  you  had  looked  forward  to  being  a  man 
—  a  trapper  of  the  plains  or  a  railway  engineer 
or  a  pirate,  for  choice,  but  pending  that,  to  get 
through  the  necessity  of  going  to  school  five  times 
a  week.  In  vacations,  of  course,  you  looked  for- 
ward to  school's  beginning  again,  because  next 
term  was  to  be  quite  different  from  the  last,  and 
moreover  because  last  session,  in  retrospection,  did 
not  appear  to  have  been  half  bad.  And  of  course 
you  were  always  wishing  it  would  hurry  up  and 
be  your  birthday,  or  Christmas,  or  even  Easter. 
.  .  .  Later,  wi'th  puberty,  had  come  the  desire  to 
be  a  devil  with  the  women,  like  the  fellows  in 
Wycherley's  plays  (a  cherished  volume,  which 
your  schoolmates,  unaccountably,  did  not  find  suf- 
ficiently "  spicy  ")  ;  and  to  become  a  great  author, 
like  Shakespeare;  and  to  have  plenty  of  money, 
like  the  Count  of  Monte-Cristo;  and  to  be  thrown 
with,  and  into  the  intimate  confidence  of,  famous 
people,  like  the  hero  of  a  Scott  novel.  .  .  .  Ken- 
naston reflected  that  his  touchstones  seemed  uni- 
versally to  have  come  from  the  library.  .  .  .  And 
Felix  Kennaston  had  achieved  his  desire,  to  every 

173 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

intent,  however  unready  posterity  stood  to  bracket 
him  with  Casanova  or  Don  Juan,  and  however 
many  tourists  still  went  with  reverence  to  Strat- 
ford. For  the  rest,  he  had  sufficient  money;  and 
quite  certainly  he  had  met  more  celebrities  than 
any  other  person  living.  Felix  Kennaston  re- 
flected that,  through  accident's  signal  favor,  he 
had  done  all  he  had  at  any  time  very  earnestly 
wanted  to  do ;  and  that  the  result  was  always  dis- 
appointing, and  not  as  it  was  depicted  in  story- 
books. .  .  .  He  wondered  why  he  should  again 
be  harking  back  to  literary  standards. 

Then  it  occurred  to  him  that,  in  reality,  he  had 
always  been  shuffling  through  to-day  —  somehow 
and  anyhow  —  in  the  belief  that  to-morrow  the 
life  of  Felix  Kennaston  would  be  converted  into  a 
romance  like  those  in  story-books. 

The  transfiguring  touch  was  to  come,  it 
seemed,  from  a  girl's  lips;  but  it  had  not;  he 
kissed,  and  life  remained  uncharmed.  It  was  to 
come  from  marriage,  after  which  everything  would 
be  quite  different;  but  the  main  innovation  was 
that  he  missed  the  long  delightful  talks  he  used 
to  have  with  Kathleen  (mostly  about  Felix  Ken- 

'74 


EVOLUTION     OF     A     VESTRYMAN 

naston),  since  as  married  people  they  appeared 
only  to  speak  to  each  other,  in  passing,  as  it  were, 
between  the  discharge  of  various  domestic  and 
social  duties,  and  speaking  then  of  having  seen 
So-and-so,  and  of  So-and-so's  having  said  this-or- 
that.  The  transfiguring  touch  was  to  come  from 
wealth;  and  it  had  not,  for  all  that  his  address 
was  in  the  Social  Register,  and  was  neatly  typed 
in  at  the  beginning  of  one  copy  of  pretty  much 
every  appeal  sent  broadcast  by  charitable  organ- 
izations. It  was  to  come  from  fame;  and  it  had 
not,  even  with  the  nine-day  wonder  over  Men 
Who  Loved  Alison,  and  with  Felix  Kennaston's 
pictorial  misrepresentation  figuring  in  public  jour- 
nals, almost  as  prodigally  as  if  he  had  murdered 
his  wife  with  peculiar  brutality  or  headed  a  com- 
pany to  sell  inexpensive  shoes.  And,  at  the  bot- 
tom of  his  heart,  he  was  still  expecting  the  trans- 
figuring touch  to  come,  some  day,  from  some- 
thing he  was  to  obtain  or  do,  perhaps  to-morrow. 
.  .  .  Then  he  had  by  accident  found  out  the  sigil's 
power.  .  .  . 

Men  everywhere  were  living  as  he  had  lived. 
People  got  their  notions  of  life,  if  only  at  second- 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

or  third-hand,  from  books,  precisely  as  he  had 
done.  Even  Amrou  had  derived  his  notions  as 
to  the  value  of  literature  from  a  book.  Men  pre- 
tended laboriously  that  their  own  lives  were  like 
the  purposeful  and  clearly  motived  life  of  book- 
land.  In  secret,  the  more  perspicacious  cher- 
ished the  reflection  that,  any  how,  their  lives 
would  begin  to  be  like  that  to-morrow.  The  pur- 
blind majority  quite  honestly  believed  that  litera- 
ture was  meant  to  mimic  human  life,  and  that  it 
did  so.  And  in  consequences,  their  love-affairs, 
their  maxims,  their  passions,  their  ethics,  their 
conversations,  their  so-called  natural  ties  and  in- 
stincts, and  above  all,  their  wickednesses,  became 
just  so  many  bungling  plagiarisms  from  something 
they  had  read,  in  a  novel  or  a  Bible  or  a  poem  or 
a  newspaper.  People  progressed  from  the  kin- 
dergarten to  the  cemetery  assuming  that  their 
emotion  at  every  crisis  was  what  books  taught 
them  was  the  appropriate  emotion,  and  without 
noticing  that  it  was  in  reality  something  quite  dif- 
ferent. Human  life  was  a  distorting  tarnished 
mirror  held  up  to  literature :  this  much  at  least 
of  Wilde's  old  paradox  —  that  life  mimicked  art 
176 


EVOLUTION     OF     A     VESTRYMAN 

—  was  indisputable.  Human  life,  very  clumsily, 
tried  to  reproduce  the  printed  word.  Human  life 
was  prompted  by,  and  was  based  upon,  printed 
words — "  in  the  beginning  was  the  Word,"  pre- 
cisely as  Gospel  asserted.  Kennaston  had  it  now. 
Living  might  become  symmetrical,  well-plotted, 
coherent,  and  rational  as  living  was  in  books. 
This  was  the  hope  which  guided  human  beings 
through  to-day  with  anticipation  of  to-morrow. 

Then  he  perceived  that  there  was  no  such  thing 
as  symmetry  anywhere  in  inanimate  nature.  .  .  . 

It  was  Ettarre  who  first  pointed  out  to  him  the 
fact,  so  tremendously  apparent  when  once  ob- 
served, that  there  was  to  be  found  nowhere  in 
inanimate  nature  any  approach  to  symmetry.  It 
needed  only  a  glance  toward  the  sky  the  first  clear 
night  to  show  there  was  no  pattern-work  in  the 
arrangement  of  the  stars.  Nor  were  the  planets 
moving  about  the  sun  at  speeds  or  distances  which 
bore  any  conceivable  relation  to  one  another.  It 
was  all  at  loose  ends.  He  wondered  how  he 
could  possibly  have  been  misled  by  pulpit  plati- 
tudes into  likening  this  circumambient  anarchy  to 
mechanism.  To  his  finicky  love  of  neatness  the 

177 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

universe  showed  on  a  sudden  as  a  vast  disheveled 
horror.  There  seemed  so  little  harmony,  so 
faint  a  sense  of  order,  back  of  all  this  infinite  tor- 
rent of  gyrations.  Interstellar  space  seemed  just 
a  jumble  of  frozen  or  flaming  spheres  that,  mov- 
ing ceaselessly,  appeared  to  avoid  one  another's 
orbits,  or  to  collide,  by  pure  chance.  This  spate 
of  stars,  as  in  three  monstrous  freshets,  might 
roughly  serve  some  purpose;  but  there  was  to  be 
found  no  more  formal  order  therein  than  in  the 
flow  of  water-drops  over  a  mill-wheel. 

And  on  earth  there  was  no  balancing  in  the  dis- 
tribution of  land  and  water.  Continents  ap- 
proached no  regular  shape.  Mountains  stood  out 
like  pimples  or  lay  like  broken  welts  across  the 
habitable  ground,  with  no  symmetry  of  arrange- 
ment. Rivers  ran  anywhither,  just  as  the  hap- 
hazard slope  of  earth's  crevices  directed;  upon  the 
map  you  saw  quite  clearly  that  their  streams 
neither  balanced  one  another  nor  watered  the  land 
with  any  pretense  of  equity.  There  was  no  sym- 
metry anywhere  in  inanimate  nature,  no  harmony, 
no  equipoise  of  parts,  no  sense  of  form,  not  even 
a  straight  line.  It  was  all  at  loose  ends. 


EVOLUTION     OF     A     VESTRYMAN 

But  living  things  aimed  toward  symmetry.  In 
plants  the  notion  seemed  rudimentary,  yet  the 
goal  was  recognizable.  The  branches  of  a  tree 
did  not  put  out  at  ordered  distance,  nor  could 
you  discern  any  definite  plan  in  their  shaping:  but 
in  the  leaves,  at  least,  you  detected  an  effort  to- 
ward true  balance :  the  two  halves  of  a  leaf,  in  a 
rough  fashion,  were  equal.  In  every  leaf  and 
flower  and  grass-blade  you  saw  this  never  entirely 
successful  effort. 

And  in  insects  and  reptiles  and  fish  and  birds 
and  animals  you  saw  again  this  effort,  more  credi- 
tably performed.  All  life  seemed  about  the 
rather  childish  employment  of  producing  a  crea- 
ture which  consisted  of  two  equal  and  exactly  cor- 
responding parts.  It  was  true  that  in  most  cases 
this  effort  was  foiled  by  an  uneven  distribution 
of  color  in  plumage  or  scales  or  hide;  but  in  in- 
sects and  in  mankind  the  goal,  so  far  as  went  the 
eye,  was  reached.  Men  and  insects,  to  the  eye 
at  least,  could  be  divided  into  two  equal  halves.  .  .  . 

But  even  so,  there  was  no  real  symmetry  in 
man's  body  save  in  externals.  The  heart  was  not 
in  the  center;  there  was  no  order  in  the  jumbled 

179 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

viscera;  the  two  divisions  of  the  brain  did  not 
correspond;  there  was  nothing  on  the  left  side 
to  balance  the  troublesome  vermiform  appendix 
on  the  right;  even  the  lines  in  the  palm  of  one 
hand  were  unlike  those  which  marked  the  other: 
and  everywhere,  in  fine,  there  was  some  irrational 
discrepancy.  Man,  the  highest  form  as  yet  of 
life,  had  attained  at  most  only  a  teasing  semblance 
of  that  crude  symmetry  toward  which  all  life 
seemed  to  aim,  and  which  inanimate  nature  ap- 
peared to  ignore.  Nowhere  in  the  universe  could 
Kennaston  discover  any  instance  of  quite  equal 
balance,  of  anything  which,  as  vision  went,  could 
be  divided  into  two  similar  halves  —  save  only 
in  man's  handiwork.  Here,  again,  insects  ap- 
proached man's  efforts  more  closely  than  the  rest 
of  creation;  for  many  of  them  builded  almost  as 
truly.  But  man,  alone  in  the  universe,  could  pro- 
duce exact  visual  symmetry,  in  a  cathedral  or  a 
dinner-table  or  a  pair  of  scissors,  just  as  man  so 
curiously  mimicked  symmetry  in  his  outward  ap- 
pearance. The  circumstance  was  droll,  and  no 
less  quaint  for  the  fact  that  it  was  perhaps  without 
significance.  .  .  . 
180 


EVOLUTION     OF     A     VESTRYMAN 

But  Kennaston  bemused  himself  with  following 
out  the  notion  that  life  was  trying  to  evolve 
symmetry  —  order,  proportion  and  true  balance. 
Living  creatures  represented  life's  gropings  to- 
ward that  goal.  You  saw,  no  doubt,  a  dim  per- 
ception of  this  in  the  dream  which  sustained  all 
human  beings  —  that  to-morrow  living  would  be- 
gin to  be  symmetrical,  well-plotted  and  coherent, 
like  the  progress  of  a  novel.  .  .  .  And  that  was 
precisely  what  religion  promised,  only  in  more  ex- 
plicit terms,  and  with  the  story's  milieu  fixed  in 
romantic,  rather  than  realistic,  settings.  Ken- 
naston had  here  the  sensation  of  fitting  in  the  last 
bit  of  a  puzzle.  Life,  yearning  for  symmetry, 
stood  revealed  as  artist.  Life  strove  toward  the 
creation  of  art.  That  was  all  life  cared  about. 
Living  things  were  more  or  less  successful  works 
of  art,  and  were  to  be  judged  according  to  art's 
canons  alone.  The  universe  was  life's  big  barren 
studio,  which  the  Artist  certainly  had  neither 
planned  nor  builded,  but  had,  somehow,  occupied, 
to  make  the  best  of  its  limitations.  For  Kennas- 
ton insisted  that  living  things  and  inanimate  na- 
ture had  none  of  the  earmarks  of  being  by  the 

181 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

same  author.  They  were  not  in  similar  style,  he 
said;  thus,  presupposing  a  sentient  creator  of  the 
stars  and  planets,  it  would  seem  to  have  been  in 
contradiction  of  his  code  to  make  both  a  man's 
eyes  of  the  same  color. 

It  was  this  course  of  speculation  which  con- 
verted Kennaston  to  an  abiding  faith  in  Chris- 
tianity, such  as,  our  rector  informs  me,  is  deplora- 
bly rare  in  these  lax  pleasure-loving  days  of  ma- 
terialism. To  believe  this  inconsiderable  planet 
the  peculiar  center  of  a  God's  efforts  and  atten- 
tion had  for  a  long  while  strained  Kennaston's 
credulity:  the  thing  was  so  woefully  out  of  pro- 
portion when  you  considered  earth's  relative  value 
in  the  universe.  But  now  Felix  Kennaston  com- 
prehended that  in  the  insensate  universe  there  was 
no  proportion.  The  idea  was  unknown  to  the 
astral  architect,  or  at  best  no  part  of  his  plan,  if 
indeed  there  had  been  any  pre-meditation  or  con- 
triver concerned.  Singly  on  our  small  earth  — 
not  even  in  the  solar  system  of  which  earth  made 
a  part  —  was  any  sense  of  proportion  evinced; 
and  there  it  was  apparent  only  in  living  things. 
Kennaston  seemed  to  glimpse  an  Artist-God,  with  a 
182 


EVOLUTION     OF     A     VESTRYMAN 

commendable  sense  of  form  —  Kennaston's  fellow 
craftsman  — the  earth  as  that  corner  of  the  studio 
wherein  the  God  was  working  just  now,  and  all 
life  as  a  romance  the  God  was  inditing.  .  .  . 

That  the  plot  of  this  romance  began  with 
Eden  and  reached  its  climax  at  Calvary,  Kennas- 
ton  was  persuaded,  solely  and  ardently,  because 
of  the  surpassing  beauty  of  the  Christ-legend. 
No  other  myth  compared  with  it  from  an  aesthetic 
standpoint.  He  could  imagine  no  theme  more 
adequate  to  sustain  a  great  romance  than  this  of 
an  Author  suffering  willingly  for  His  puppets'  wel- 
fare; and  mingling  with  His  puppets  in  the  simili- 
tude of  one  of  them;  and  able  to  wring  only  con- 
tempt and  pity  from  His  puppets  —  since  He  had 
not  endowed  them  with  any  faculties  wherewith 
to  comprehend  their  Creator's  nature  and  intent. 
Indeed,  it  was  pretty  much  the  plight  which  Ken- 
naston  had  invented  for  his  own  puppets  at  Storis- 
ende,  as  Kennaston  complacently  reflected.  It 
was  the  most  tremendous  situation  ^imaginable; 
and  quite  certainly  no  Author  could  ever  have 
failed  to  perceive,  and  to  avail  Himself  of,  its 
dramatic  possibilities.  To  conceive  that  the 

183 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

world-romance  did  not  center  upon  Calvary  was  to 
presume  an  intelligent  and  skilled  Romancer  blind 
to  the  basic  principles  of  His  art.  His  sense  of 
pathos  and  of  beauty  and  of  irony  could  have  led 
Him  to  select  no  other  legend.  And  in  the  incon- 
sistencies and  unsolved  problems,  or  even  the  ap- 
parent contradictions,  of  Christianity,  Felix  Ken- 
naston  could  see  only  a  possible  error  or  omis- 
sion on  the  Author's  part,  such  as  was  common 
to  all  romances.  A  few  errata  did  not  hamper 
the  tale's  worth  and  splendor,  or  render  it  a  whit 
less  meritorious  of  admiration.  .  .  . 

And,  indeed,  Felix  Kennaston  found  that  his 
theory  of  the  Atonement  was  in  harmony  with 
quite  orthodox  teachings.  The  library  at  Alcluid 
revealed  bewildered  and  perturbed  generations 
at  guess-work.  How  could  a  God  have  been 
placated,  and  turned  from  wrath  to  benevolence, 
by  witnessing  the  torment  of  His  own  son? 
What  pleasure,  whereby  He  was  propitiated, 
could  the  God  have  derived  from  watching  the 
scene  on  Calvary?  Or  was  the  God,  as  priests 
had  taught  so  long  (within  the  same  moment  that 
they  proclaimed  the  God's  omnipotence)  not 
184 


EVOLUTION     OF     A     VESTRYMAN 

wholly  a  free  agent,  because  bound  by  laws 
whereby  He  was  compelled  to  punish  some  one 
for  humanity's  disobedience,  with  the  staggering 
option  of  substituting  an  innocent  victim?  For  if 
you  granted  that,  you  conceded  to  be  higher  than 
the  God,  and  overruling  Him,  a  power  which 
made  for  flat  injustice.  Since  Schleiermacher's 
time,  at  least,  as  Kennaston  discovered,  there 
had  been  reasoning  creatures  to  contest  the 
possibility  of  such  discrepant  assumptions,  and 
a  dynasty  of  teachers  who  adhered  to  the  "  sub- 
jective "  theory  of  propitiation.  For  these 
considered  that  Christ  came,  not  primarily  to  be 
crucified,  but  by  his  life  to  reveal  to  men  the 
nature  of  their  God.  The  crucifixion  was  an  inci- 
dental, almost  inevitable,  result  of  human  obtuse- 
ness;  and  was  pregnant  with  value  only  in  that 
thereby  the  full  extent  of  divine  love  was  per- 
fectly evinced.  The  personality,  rather  than  the 
sufferings,  of  the  Nazarene  had  thus  satisfied,  not 
any  demand  or  attribute  of  the  God  by  acting 
upon  it  from  without,  "  but  God's  total  nature  by 
revealing  it  and  realizing  it  in  humanity."  The 
God,  in  short,  had  satisfied  Himself  "  by  reveal- 

185 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

ing  and  expressing  His  nature  "  in  the  material 
universe,  precisely  as  lesser  artists  got  relief  from 
the  worries  of  existence  by  depicting  themselves 
in  their  books.  Just  as  poets  express  themselves 
communicatively  in  words,  so  here  the  Author 
had  expressed  Himself  in  flesh.  Such,  in  effect, 
had  been  the  teaching  of  Karl  Immanuel  Nitzsch, 
of  Richard  Rothe,  and  of  von  Hofman,  in  Ger- 
many; of  Auguste  Bouvier  in  Geneva;  of  Alexan- 
dre  Vinet,  and  of  Auguste  Sabatier,  in  France;  of 
Frederick  Denison  Maurice,  and  John  Caird,  and 
Benjamin  Jowett,  in  England;  and  in  America 
of  Horace  Bushnell,  and  Elisha  Mulford,  and 
William  Newton  Clarke.  The  list  was  imposing: 
and  Kennaston  rejoiced  to  find  himself  at  one  with 
so  many  reputable  theologians.  For  all  these 
scholars  had  dimly  divined,  with  whatever  vari- 
ousness  they  worded  the  belief,  that  the  God's 
satisfaction  sprang,  in  reality,  from  the  conscious- 
ness of  having  at  last  done  a  fine  piece  of  artistic 
work,  in  creating  the  character  of  Christ.  .  .  . 

So,  as  nearly  as  one  can  phrase  the  matter,  it 
was  really  as  a  proof  of  confidence  in  his  Author's 
literary  abilities  that  Felix  Kennaston  was  pres- 
186 


EVOLUTION     OF     A     VESTRYMAN 

ently  confirmed  at  our  little  country  church,  to  the 
delight  of  his  wife  and  the  approbation  of  his 
neighbors.  It  was  felt  to  be  eminently  suitable : 
that  such  a  quiet  well-to-do  man  of  his  years  and 
station  should  not  be  a  communicant  was  gener- 
ally, indeed,  adjudged  unnatural.  And  when  Wil- 
liam T.  Vartrey  (of  the  Lichfield  Iron  Works) 
was  gathered  to  his  grandfathers,  in  the  follow- 
ing autumn,  Mr.  Kennaston  was  rather  as  a  mat- 
ter of  course  elected  to  succeed  him  in  the  vestry. 
And  Kennaston  was  unfeignedly  pleased  and  flat- 
tered. 


To  the  discerning  it  is  easy  enough  to  detect  in 
all  this  fantastic  theorizing  the  man's  obsessing 
love  of  ordered  beauty  and  his  abhorrence  of 
slovenliness  —  of  shapelessness  —  which  make 
his  writings  so  admirable,  here  alluring  him  to  be- 
lieve that  such  ideals  must  also  be  cherished  by 
Omnipotence.  This  poet  loved  his  formal  art 
to  the  extent  of  coming  to  assume  it  was  the  pur- 
pose and  the  origin  of  terrestrial  life.  Life 
seemed  to  him,  in  short,  a  God's  chosen  form  of 
artistic  self-expression;  and  as  a  confrere,  Ken- 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

naston  found  the  result  praiseworthy.  Even  in- 
animate nature,  he  sometimes  thought,  might  be  a 
divine  experiment  in  vers  libre.  .  .  .  But  neither 
the  justice  of  Kennaston's  airdrawn  surmises,  nor 
their  wildness,  matters;  the  point  is  that  they  made 
of  him  a  vestryman  who  in  appearance  and  speech 
and  actions,  and  in  essential  beliefs,  differed  not 
at  all  from  his  associates  in  office,  who  had  com- 
fortably acquired  their  standards  by  hearsay.  So 
that  the  moral  of  his  theorizing  should  be  no  less 
obvious  than  salutary. 


Thus,  he  too  entered  at  last  into  that  belief 
which  is  man's  noble  heritage.  .  .  . 

"  Or  I  would  put  it,  rather,  that  belief  is  man's 
metier"  Kennaston  once  corrected  me  — "  for  the 
sufficient  reason  that  man  has  nothing  to  do  with 
certainties.  He  cannot  ever  get  in  direct  touch 
with  reality.  Such  is  the  immutable  law,  the  true 
cream  of  the  jest.  Felix  Kennaston,  so  long  as 
he  wears  the  fleshly  body  of  Felix  Kennaston,  is 
conscious  only  of  various  tiny  disturbances  in  his 
brain-cells,  which  entertain  and  interest  him,  but 
cannot  pretend  to  probe  to  the  roots  of  reality 
188 


EVOLUTION     OF     A     VESTRYMAN 

about  anything.  By  the  nature  of  my  mental 
organs,  it  is  the  sensation  the  thing  arouses  in 
my  brain  of  which  I  am  aware,  and  never  of  the 
thing  itself.  I  am  conscious  only  of  appearances. 
They  may  all  be  illusory.  I  cannot  ever  tell. 
But  it  is  my  human  privilege  to  believe  whatever  I 
may  elect." 

"  And,  my  dear  sir,"  as  I  pointed  out,  "  is  not 
this  hair-splitting,  really,  a  reduction  of  human 
life  to  the  very  shallowest  sort  of  mysticism,  that 
gets  you  nowhere?  " 

"  Now  again,  Harrowby,  you  are  falling  into 
the  inveterate  race-delusion  that  man  is  intended 
to  get  somewhere.  I  do  not  see  that  the  notion 
rests  on  any  readily  apparent  basis.  It  is  at  any 
rate  a  working  hypothesis  that  in  the  world- 
romance  man,  being  cast  for  the  part  of  fool,  quite 
obviously  best  furthers  the  denouements  success 
by  wearing  his  motley  bravely.  .  .  .  There  was  a 
fool  in  my  own  romance,  a  character  of  no  great 
importance ;  yet  it  was  an  essential  incident  in  the 
story  that  he  should  irresponsibly  mislay  the 
King's  letter,  and  Sir  Guiron  thus  be  forced  to 
seek  service  under  Duke  Florestan.  Perhaps,  in 

189 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

similar  fashion,  it  is  here  necessary  to  the  Author's 
scheme  that  man  must  simply  go  on  striving  to 
gain  a  little  money,  food,  and  sleep,  a  trinket  or 
two,  some  moments  of  laughter,  and  at  the  last 
a  decent  bed  to  die  in.  For  it  may  well  be  that 
man's  allotted  part  calls  for  just  these  actions,  to 
round  out  the  drama  artistically.  Yes;  it  is  quite 
conceivable  that,  much  as  I  shaped  events  at 
Storisende,  so  here  the  Author  aims  toward  mak- 
ing an  aesthetic  masterpiece  of  His  puppet-play  as 
a  whole,  rather  than  at  ending  everything  with  a 
transformation  scene  such  as,  when  we  were 
younger,  used  so  satisfactorily  to  close  The  Black 
Crook  and  The  Devil's  Auction.  For  it  may  well 
be  that  the  Author  has,  after  all,  more  in  common 
with  ^Eschylus,  say,  than  with  Mr.  Charles  H. 
Yale.  ...  So  I  must  train  my  mind  to  be  con- 
tented with  appearances,  whether  they  be  true  or 
not  —  and  reserving  always  a  permissible  prefer- 
ence for  pleasant  delusions.  Being  mortal,  I  am 
able  to  contrive  no  thriftier  bargain." 

"  Being  mortal,"  I  amended,  "  we  pick  our 
recreations  to  suit  our  tastes.  Now  I,  for  instance 
190 


EVOLUTION     OF     A     VESTRYMAN 

—  as  is,  indeed,  a  matter  of  some  notoriety  and 
derision  here  in  Lichfield  —  am  interested  in  what 
people  loosely  speak  of  as  '  the  occult.'  I  don't 
endeavor  to  persuade  defunct  poetesses  to  dictate 
via  the  Ouija  board  effusions  which  give  little  en- 
couragement as  to  the  present  state  of  culture  in 
Paradise,  or  to  induce  Napoleon  to  leave  wher- 
ever he  is  and  devote  his  energies  to  tipping  a 
table  for  me,  you  understand.  .  .  .  But  I  quite 
fixedly  believe  the  Wardens  of  Earth  sometimes 
unbar  strange  windows,  that  face  on  other  worlds 
than  ours.  And  some  of  us,  I  think,  once  in  a 
while  get  a  peep  through  these  windows.  But  we 
are  not  permitted  to  get  a  long  peep,  or  an  unob- 
structed peep,  nor,  very  certainly,  are  we  permit- 
ted to  see  all  there  is  —  out  yonder.  The  fatal 
fault,  sir,  of  your  theorizing  is  that  it  is  too  com- 
plete. It  aims  to  throw  light  upon  the  universe, 
and  therefore  is  self-evidently  moonshine.  The 
Wardens  of  Earth  do  not  desire  that  we  should 
understand  the  universe,  Mr.  Kennaston;  it  is  part 
of  Their  appointed  task  to  insure  that  we  never 
do;  and  because  of  Their  efficiency  every  notion 

191 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

that  any  man,  dead,  living,  or  unborn,  might  form 
as  to  the  universe  will  necessarily  prove  wrong. 
So,  if  for  no  other  reason,  I  must  decline  to  think 
of  you  and  me  as  characters  in  a  romance." 


192 


Book  Fifth 


"This  was  the  measure  of  my  soul's  delight; 

It  had  no  power  of  joy  to  fly  by  day, 
Nor  part  in  the  large  lordship  of  the  light; 

But  in  a  secret  moon-beholden  way 
Had  all  its  will  of  dreams  and  pleasant  night, 

And  all  the  love  and  life  that  sleepers  may. 

"But  such  life's  triumph  as  men  waking  may 
It  might  not  have  to  feed  its  faint  delight." 


Of  Poetic  Love:  Treated 
with  Poetic  Inefficiency 


SO  much  for  what  Kennaston  termed  his 
"  serious  reading  "  in  chance-opened  pages 
of  the  past.  There  were  other  dreams 
quite  different  in  nature,  which  seemed,  rather, 
to  fulfil  the  function  of  romantic  art,  in 
satisfying  his  human  craving  for  a  full-fed  emo- 
tional existence  —  dreams  which  Kennaston  jest- 
ingly described  as  "  belles  lettres"  For  now  by 
turn  —  as  murderer,  saint,  herdsman,  serf,  fop, 
pickpurse,  troubadour,  monk,  bravo,  lordling, 
monarch,  and  in  countless  other  estates  —  Ken- 
naston tasted  those  fruitless  emotions  which  it  is 
the  privilege  of  art  to  arouse  —  joys  without  any 
inevitable  purchase-price,  regrets  that  were  not 
bitter,  and  miseries  which  left  him  not  a  penny  the 
worse. 

But  it  was  as  a  lover  that  his  role  most  en- 
grossed him,  in  many  dreams  wherein  he  bore  for 

195 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

Ettarre  such  adoration  as  he  had  always  wistfully 
hoped  he  might  entertain  toward  some  woman 
some  day,  and  had  not  ever  known  in  his  waking 
hours.  It  was  sober  truth  he  had  spoken  at  Storis- 
ende :  "  There  is  no  woman  like  you  in  my  coun- 
try, Ettarre.  I  can  rind  no  woman  anywhere 
resembling  you  whom  dreams  alone  may  win  to." 
But  now  at  last,  even  though  it  were  only  in 
dreams,  he  loved  as  he  had  always  dimly  felt  he 
was  capable  of  loving.  .  . .  Even  the  old  lost  faculty 
of  verse-making  seemed  to  come  back  to  him  with 
this  change,  and  he  began  again  to  fashion  rhymes, 
elaborating  bright  odd  vignettes  of  foiled  love  in 
out-of-the-way  epochs  and  surroundings.  These 
were  the  verses  included,  later,  under  the  general 
title  of  "  Dramatis  Personae,"  in  his  Chimes  at 
Midnight. 

He  wrote  of  foiled  love  necessarily,  since  not 
even  as  a  lover  might  he  win  to  success.  It  was 
the  cream  of  some  supernal  jest  that  he  might 
not  touch  Ettarre;  that  done,  though  but  by  acci- 
dent, the  dream  ended,  and  the  universe  seemed  to 
fold  about  him,  just  as  a  hand  closes.  He  came 
to  understand  the  reason  of  this.  "  Love  must 
196 


OF  POETIC  LOVE 

look  toward  something  not  quite  accessible,  some- 
thing not  quite  understood,"  he  had  said  at  Storis- 
ende :  and  this  phrase,  so  lightly  despatched,  came 
home  to  him  now  as  pregnant  truth.  For  it  was 
this  fact  which  enabled  him  to  love  Ettarre,  and 
had  always  prevented  his  loving  any  other  woman. 
All  mortal  women  either  loved  some  other  man, 
and  went  with  him  somewhither  beyond  the  area 
of  your  daily  life,  and  so,  in  time  were  forgotten ; 
or,  else,  they  loved  you,  and  laid  bare  to  you  their 
minds  and  bodies  —  and  neither  of  these  pos- 
sessions ever  proved  so  remarkable,  when  calmly 
viewed,  as  to  justify  continued  infatuation  there- 
with. Such  at  least  Felix  Kennaston  had  always 
found  to  be  the  case :  love  did  not  live,  as  lovers 
do,  by  feeding;  but,  paradoxically,  got  strength 
by  hungering.  It  should  be  remembered,  how- 
ever, that  Felix  Kennaston  was  a  poet.  .  .  . 


He  would  sometimes  think  of  the  women  who 
had  loved  him;  and  would  speculate,  with  some 
wistfulness,  if  it  was  invariably  true,  as  with  his 
own  amorous  traffic,  that  love  both  kept  and  left 
its  victims  strangers  to  each  other?  He  knew  so 

197 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

little  of  these  soft-lipped  girls  and  women,  when 
everything  was  said.  .  .  . 

Yet  there  had  been  • —  he  counted  —  yes,  time 
had  known  eight  chaste  and  comely  gentlewomen, 
in  all,  who  had  "  given  themselves  to  him,"  as  the 
hackneyed  phrase  was.  These  eight  affairs,  at 
any  event,  had  conformed  to  every  tradition,  and 
had  been  as  thorough-going  as  might  romantically 
be  expected:  but  nothing  much  seemed  to  have 
come  of  them;  and  he  did  not  feel  in  the  upshot 
very  well  acquainted  with  their  heroines.  His 
sole  emotion  toward  them  nowadays  was  that  of 
mild  dislike.  But  six  of  them  —  again  to  utilize 
a  venerable  conjunction  of  words  —  had  "  de- 
ceived their  husbands  "  for  the  caresses  of  an 
impecunious  Kennaston;  and  the  other  two  had 
anticipatorily  u  deceived "  the  husbands  they 
took  later:  so  that  they  must,  he  reflected,  have 
loved  Felix  Kennaston  sincerely.  He  was  quite 
certain,  though,  that  he  had  never  loved  any  one 
of  them  as  he  had  always  wanted  to  love.  No 
one  of  these  women  had  given  him  what  he  sought 
in  vain.  Kennaston  had  felt  this  lack  of  success 
dispiritedly  when,  with  soft  arms  about  him,  it 
198 


OF     POETIC     LOVE 

was  necessary  to  think  of  what  he  would  say  next. 
He  had  always  in  such  circumstances  managed  to 
feign  high  rapture,  to  his  temporary  companion's 
entire  satisfaction,  as  he  believed;  but  each  adven- 
ture left  him  disappointed.  It  had  not  roused  in 
him  the  overwhelming  emotions  lovers  had  in 
books,  nor  anything  resembling  these  emotions; 
and  that  was  what  he  had  wanted,  and  had  not 
ever  realized,  until  the  coming  of  Ettarre.  .  .  . 

He  had  made  love,  as  a  prevalent  rule,  to 
married  women  - —  allured,  again,  by  bookish 
standards,  which  advanced  the  commerce  of 
Lancelot  with  Guinevere,  or  of  Paolo  Malatesta 
with  his  brother's  wife,  as  the  supreme  type  of 
romantic  passion.  On  more  practical  grounds, 
Kennaston  preferred  married  women,  partly  be- 
cause they  were  less  stupid  to  converse  with  in 
general,  and  in  particular  did  not  bring  up  the 
question  of  marrying  you;  and  in  part  because  the 
husband  in  the  background  helped  the  situation 
pictorially  —  this  notion  also  now  seemed  to  be 
of  literary  origin  —  besides  furnishing  an  unfail- 
ing topic  of  conversation.  For  unfaithful  or 
wavering  wives,  to  Kennaston's  finding,  peculiarly 

199 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

delighted  in  talking  about  their  husbands;  and  in 
such  prattle  failed  either  to  exhibit  the  conven- 
tional remorse  toward,  or  any  very  grave  com- 
plaint against,  the  discussed  better-half.  The  in- 
consistency would  have  worried  Kennaston's  sense 
of  justice,  had  not  these  husbands  always  been  so 
transparently  certain  of  Kennaston's  insignifi- 
cance. .  .  .  Although  judging  of  necessity  only 
from  his  own  experience,  Kennaston  was  unable 
conscientiously  to  approve  of  adulterous  love-af- 
fairs: they  tended  too  soon  toward  tediousness; 
and  married  women  seemed  horribly  quick  to  be- 
come matter-of-fact  in  the  details  of  a  liaison,  and 
ready  almost  to  confuse  you  with  the  husband. 

The  giggle  and  chatter  of  young  girls  Ken- 
naston had  always  esteemed  unalluring,  even  in 
his  own  youth.  He  had  admired  a  number  of 
them  extravagantly,  but  only  as  ornamental  ob- 
jects upon  which  very  ill-advisedly  had  been  con- 
ferred the  gift  of  speech.  To-day  he  looked  back 
wistfully  at  times,  as  we  must  all  do,  to  that  girl 
who  first  had  asked  him  if  he  was  sure  that  he 
respected  her  as  much  as  ever:  but  it  was  with 
the  mental  annotation  that  she  had  seven  children 
200 


OF     POETIC     LOVE 

now,  and,  as  Kathleen  put  it,  not  a  ray  of  good 
looks  left.  And  he  would  meditate  that  he  had 
certainly  been  fond  of  Margaret  Hugonin,  even 
though  in  the  beginning  it  was  her  money  which 
attracted  him;  and  that  Marian  Winwood,  despite 
her  underhanded  vengeance  in  publishing  his  let- 
ters, had  been  the  most  delectable  of  company  all 
that  ancient  summer  when  it  had  rained  so  per- 
sistently. Then  there  had  been  tall  Agnes  Faroy, 
like  a  statue  of  gold  and  ivory;  Kitty  Provis,  with 
those  wonderful  huge  green  eyes  of  hers;  and 
Celia  Reindan,  she  who  wore  that  curious  silver 
band  across  her  forehead;  and  Helen  Strong;  and 
Blanche  Druro;  and  Muriel.  ...  In  memory 
they  arose  like  colorful  and  gracious  phantoms, 
far  more  adorable  than  they  had  ever  been  on 
earth,  when  each  of  these  had  loaned,  for  a 
season,  the  touch  of  irresolute  soft  hands  and 
friendly  lips  to  a  half-forgotten  Felix  Kennaston. 
All  these,  and  others,  had  been,  a  long  while  since, 
the  loveliest  creatures  that  wore  tender  human 
flesh :  and  so,  they  had  kissed,  and  they  had  talked 
time-hallowed  nonsense,  and  they  had  shed  the 
orthodox  tears ;  and  —  also  a  long  while  since  — 

201 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

they  had  died  or  they  had  married  the  conven- 
tional some  one-else :  and  it  did  not  matter  the 
beard  of  an  onion  to  the  pudgy  pasty  man  that 
Felix  Kennaston  had  come  to  be.  He  had  pos- 
sessed, or  else  of  his  own  volition  he  had  refrained 
from  possessing,  all  these  brightly-colored  moth- 
brained  girls :  but  he  had  loved  none  of  them  as 
he  had  always  known  he  was  capable  of  loving: 
and  at  best,  these  girls  were  dead  now,  or  at 
worst,  they  had  been  converted  into  unaccount- 
able people.  .  .  . 


Kathleen  was  returning  from  the  South  that 
day,  and  Kennaston  had  gone  into  Lichfield  to 
meet  her  train.  The  Florida  Express  was  late 
by  a  full  hour ;  so  he  sat  in  their  motor-car,  wait- 
ing, turning  over  some  verses  in  his  torpid  mind, 
and  just  half-noticing  persons  who  were  gathering 
on  the  station  platform  to  take  the  noon  train  go- 
ing west.  He  was  reflecting  how  ugly  and  trivial 
people's  faces  appear  when  a  crowd  is  viewed  col- 
lectively —  and  wondering  if  the  Author,  looking 
down  into  a  hot  thronged  street,  was  never 
tempted  to  obliterate  the  race  as  an  unsuccess- 
202 


OF  POETIC  LOVE 

ful  experiment  —  when  Kennaston  recognized 
Muriel  Allardyce. 

"  I  simply  will  not  see  her,"  he  decided.  He 
turned  his  back  that  way,  picked  up  the  morning 
paper  on  the  seat  beside  him,  and  began  to  read 
an  editorial  on  immigration.  What  the  deuce 
was  she  doing  in  Lichfield,  any  way?  She  lived 
in  St.  Louis  now.  She  was  probably  visiting  Avis 
Blagden.  Evidently,  she  was  going  west  on  the 
noon  train.  If  Kathleen's  train  arrived  before 
midday  he  would  have  to  get  out  of  the  car  to 
meet  her,  and  all  three  would  come  together  on 
the  platform.  If  Muriel  spied  him  there,  in  the 
open  car,  it  would  be  not  uncharacteristic  of  her 
to  join  him.  And  he  could  not  go  away,  because 
Kathleen's  train  was  apt  to  arrive  any  minute.  It 
was  perfectly  damnable.  Why  could  the  woman 
not  stay  in  St.  Louis,  where  she  belonged,  instead 
of  gadding  about  the  country?  Thus  Kennaston, 
as  he  re-read  the  statistics  as  to  Poles  and  Mag- 
yars. 

"  I  think  there's  two  ladies  trying  to  speak  to 
you,  sir,"  the  chauffeur  hazarded. 

"  Eh  ?  —  oh,  yes !  "  said  Kennaston.  He 

203 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

looked,  perforce,  and  saw  that  across  the  railway 
track  both  Muriel  Allardyce  and  Avis  Blagden 
were  regarding  him  with  idiotic  grins  and  wav- 
ings.  He  lifted  his  hat,  smiled,  waved  his  own 
hand,  and  retired  between  the  pages  of  the  Lick- 
field  Courier-Herald.  Muriel  was  wearing  a 
light  traveling  veil,  he  reflected;  he  could  pretend 
not  to  know  who  she  was.  With  recognition,  of 
course,  he  would  be  expected  to  come  over  and 
speak  to  her.  He  must  remember  to  ask  Avis, 
the  very  next  time  he  saw  her,  who  had  been  that 
familiar-looking  person  with  her,  and  to  express 
regret  for  his  short-sightedness.  .  .  . 

He  decided  to  step  out  of  the  car,  by  way  of  the 
farther  door,  and  buy  a  package  of  cigarettes  on 
the  other  side  of  the  street.  He  could  loaf  there 
and  pray  that  Muriel's  train  left  before  Kathleen's 
arrived.  .  .  . 

"  I  don't  believed  you  recognized  us,"  said 
Avis  Blagden,  at  his  elbow.  "  Or  else  you  are 
trying  to  cut  your  old  playmates."  The  two 
women  had  brazenly  pursued  him.  They  were 
within  a  yard  of  him.  It  was  indelicate.  It  was 
so  perfectly  unnecessary.  He  cordially  wished 
204 


OF  POETIC  LOVE 

some   friendly  engine  had  run  them  both  down 
when  they  were  crossing  the  tracks.  .   .  . 

"  Why,  bless  my  soul!  "  he  was  saying,  "  this 
is  indeed  a  delightful  surprise.  I  had  no  idea 
you  were  in  town,  Mrs.  Allardyce.  I  didn't 
recognize  you,  with  that  veil  on  — " 

"  There's  Peter,  at  last,"  said  Avis.  "  I  really 
must  speak  to  him  a  moment."  And  she  promptly 
left  them.  Kennaston  reflected  that  the  whole 
transaction  was  self-evidently  pre-arranged.  And 
Muriel  was,  as  if  abstractedly,  but  deliberately, 
walking  beyond  earshot  of  the  chauffeur.  And 
there  was  nothing  for  it  save  to  accompany  her. 

"  It's  awfully  jolly  to  see  you  again,"  he  ob- 
served, with  fervor. 

"  Is  it?  Honestly,  Felix,  it  looked  almost  as 
if  you  were  trying  to  avoid  me."  Kennaston 
wondered  how  he  could  ever  have  loved  a  woman 
of  so  little  penetration. 

"  No,  I  didn't  recognize  you,  with  that  veil 
on,"  he  repeated.  "  And  I  had  no  idea  you  were 
in  Lichfield.  I  do  hope  you  are  going  to  pay  us 
all  a  nice  long  visit  — " 

"  But,  no,  I  am  leaving  on  this  train — " 

205 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

"  Oh,  I  say,  but  that's  too  bad !  And  I  never 
knew  you  were  here !  "  he  lamented. 

"  I  only  stopped  overnight  with  Avis.  I  am 
on  my  way  home  — " 

"  To  Leonard  ?"  And  Kennaston  smiled. 
"  How  do  you  get  on  with  him  nowadays?  " 

"  We  are  —  contented,  I  suppose.  He  has  his 
business  —  and  politics.  He  is  doing  perfectly 
splendidly  now,  you  know.  And  I  have  my 
memories."  Her  voice  changed.  "  I  have  my 
memories,  Felix!  Nothing  —  nothing  can  take 
that  from  me !  " 

"  Good  God,  Muriel,  there  are  a  dozen  people 
watching  us  — " 

"  What  does  that  matter !  " 

"  Well,  it  matters  a  lot  to  me.  I  live  here,  you 
know." 

She  was  silent  for  a  moment.  "  You  look  your 
latest  role  in  life  so  well,  too,  Felix.  You  are  the 
respectable  married  gentleman  to  the  last  detail. 
Why,  you  are  an  old  man  now,  Felix,"  she  said 
wistfully.  "  Your  hair  is  gray  about  the  ears, 
and  you  are  fat,  and  there  are  wrinkles  under  your 
206 


OF  POETIC  LOVE 

eyes —  But  are  you  happy,  dear?"  she  asked, 
with  the  grave  tender  speech  that  he  remembered. 
And  momentarily  the  man  forgot  the  people  about 
them,  and  the  fact  that  his  wife's  train  was  due 
any  minute. 

"  Happier  than  I  deserve  to  be,  Muriel."  His 
voice  had  quavered  —  not  ineffectively,  it  ap- 
peared to  him. 

"  That's  true,  at  least,"  the  woman  said,  as  in 
reflection.  "  You  treated  me  rather  abominably, 
you  know  —  like  an  old  shoe." 

"  I  am  not  altogether  sorry  you  take  that  view 
of  it.  For  I  wouldn't  want  you  to  regret  —  any- 
thing - —  not  even  that  which,  to  me  at  least,  is  very 
sacred.  But  there  was  really  nothing  else  to  do 
save  just  to  let  things  end.  It  was  as  hard,"  he 
said,  with  a  continuous  flight  of  imagination,  "  it 
was  as  hard  on  me  as  you." 

"  Sometimes  I  think  it  was  simply  because  you 
were  afraid  of  Leonard.  I  put  that  out  of  my 
mind,  though,  always.  You  see,  I  like  to  keep  my 
memories.  I  have  nothing  else  now,  Felix — " 
She  opened  the  small  leather  bag  she  carried, 

207 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

took  out  a  handkerchief,  and  brushed  her  lips. 
"  I  am  a  fool,  of  course.  Oh,  it  is  funny  to  see 
your  ugly  little  snub  nose  again!  And  I  couldn't 
help  wanting  to  speak  to  you,  once  more  — " 

"  It  has  been  delightful.  And  some  day  I  cer- 
tainly do  hope  —  But  there's  your  train,  I  think. 
The  gates  are  going  down." 

u  And  here  is  Avis  coming.  So  good-by,  Felix. 
It  is  really  forever  this  time,  I  think — " 

It  seemed  to  him  that  she  held  in  her  left  hand 
the  sigil  of  Scoteia.  .  .  .  He  stared  at  the  gleam- 
ing thing,  then  raised  his  eyes  to  hers.  She  was 
smiling.  Her  eyes  were  the  eyes  of  Ettarre.  All 
the  beauty  of  the  world  seemed  gathered  in  this 
woman's  face.  .  .  . 

"  Don't  let  it  be  forever !  Come  with  me, 
Felix !  There  is  only  you  —  even  now,  there  is 
only  you.  It  is  not  yet  too  late  — "  Astounding 
as  were  the  words,  they  came  quite  clearly,  in  a 
pleading  frightened  whisper. 

The  man  was  young  for  just  that  one  wonder- 
ful moment  of  inexplicable  yearning  and  self- 
loathing.  Then,  "I  —  I  am  afraid  my  wife 
would  hardly  like  it,"  he  said,  equably.  "  So 
208 


OF  POETIC  LOVE 

good-by,  Muriel.     It  has  been  very  delightful  to 
see  you  again." 


"  I  was  mistaken,  though,  of  course.  It  was 
the  top  of  a  vanity-box,  or  of  a  toilet  water  flask, 
or  of  something  else,  that  she  took  out  of  the 
bag,  when  she  was  looking  for  her  handkerchief. 
It  was  just  a  silly  coincidence.  I  was  mistaken, 
of  course.  .  .  .  And  here  is  Kathleen's  train. 
Thank  goodness,  it  was  late  enough.  .  .  ." 

Thus  Kennaston,  as  he  went  to  receive  his  wife's 
cool  kiss.  And  —  having  carefully  mentioned  as 
a  matter  of  no  earthly  importance  that  he  had 
just  seen  Muriel  Allardyce,  and  that  she  had  gone 
off  terribly  in  looks,  and  that  none  of  them  seem 
to  hold  their  own  like  you,  dear  —  he  disbarred 
from  mind  that  awkward  moment's  delusion,  and 
tried  not  to  think  of  it  any  more. 


209 


Cross-Purposes  in  Spacious 
Times 


SO  Kennaston  seemed  to  have  got  only  disap- 
pointment and  vexation  and  gainless  vague 
regret  from  his  love-affairs  in  the  flesh;  and 
all  fleshly  passion  seemed  to  flicker  out  inevitably, 
however  splendid  the  brief  blaze.     For  you  loved 
and  lost;  or  else  you  loved  and  won:  there  was 
quick  ending  either  way.     And  afterward  unac- 
countable women  haunted  you,  and  worried  you 
into  unreasonable  contrition,  in  defiance  of  com- 
mon-sense. ... 

But  for  Ettarre,  who  embodied  all  Kennaston 
was  ever  able  to  conceive  of  beauty  and  fearless- 
ness and  strange  purity,  all  perfections,  all  the 
attributes  of  divinity,  in  a  word,  such  as  his  slender 
human  faculties  were  competent  to  understand,  he 
must  hunger  always  in  vain.  Whatever  hap- 
pened, Ettarre  stayed  inaccessible,  even  in  dreams: 
her  beauty  was  his  to  look  on  only;  and  always 
210 


CROSS-PURPOSES      IN      SPACIOUS      TIMES 

when  he  came  too  near  that  radiant  loveliness 
which  was  Ettarre's  —  that  perfect  beauty  which 
was  so  full  of  troubling  reticences,  and  so,  was 
touched  with  something  sinister  —  the  dream 
would  end,  and  the  universe  would  seem  to  fold 
about  him,  just  as  a  hand  closes.  Such  was  the 
law,  the  kindly  law,  as  Kennaston  now  believed, 
through  which  love  might  thrive  even  in  the  arid 
heart  of  a  poet. 

Sometimes,  however,  this  law  would  lead  to 
odd  results,  and  left  the  dream  an  enigma.  For 
instance,  he  had  a  quaint  experience  upon  the 
night  of  that  day  during  which  he  had  talked  with 
Muriel  Allardyce.  .  .  . 


'  You  are  in  all  things  a  fortunate  man,  Master 
—  ah  —  whatever  your  true  name  may  be,"  said 
the  boy,  pettishly  flinging  down  the  cards. 

"  Ods  life,  and  have  we  done?  "  says  Kennas- 
ton. .  .  . 

The  two  sat  in  a  comfortable  paneled  room. 
There  was  a  big  open  fire  behind  Kennaston;  he 
could  see  its  reflections  flicker  about  the  wood- 
work. The  boy  facing  him  was  glowingly  attired 

211 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

in  green  and  gold,  an  ardent  comely  urchin,  who 
(as  Kennaston  estimated)  might  perhaps  be  a 
page  to  Queen  Elizabeth,  or  possibly  was  one  of 
King  James's  spoilt  striplings.  Between  them 
was  a  rough  deal  table,  littered  with  playing- 
cards;  and  upon  it  sat  a  tallish  blue  pitcher  half- 
full  of  wine,  four  lighted  candles  stuck  like  corks 
in  as  many  emptied  bottles,  and  two  coarse  yellow 
mugs.  .  .  . 

*  Yes,  we  have  done,"  the  boy  answered;  and, 
rising,  smiled  cherubically.  "  May  I  ask  what 
the  object  may  be  that  you  conceal  with  such  care 
in  your  left  hand?"  says  he. 

"  To  be  candid,"  Kennaston  returned,  "  it  is 
the  King  of  Diamonds,  that  swarthy  bearded  Span- 
iard. I  had  intended  it  should  serve  as  a  cor- 
rective and  encourager  of  Lady  Fortune,  when  I 
turned  it,  my  next  deal,  as  the  trump  card.  F 
faith,  I  thank  God  I  have  found  the  jade  is  to  be 
influenced  by  such  feats  of  manual  activity.  Oh, 
ay,  sir,  I  may  say  it  without  conceit  that  my  fin- 
gers have  in  these  matters  tolerable  compass  and 
variety." 

"  A  card-sharp !  "  sneers  the  boy.  "  La,  half 
212 


CROSS-PURPOSES      IN      SPACIOUS      TIMES 

of  us  suspected  it  already;  but  it  will  be  rare  news 
to  the  town  that  Master  Lionel  Branch  —  as  I 
must  continue  to  call  you  —  stands  detected  in 
such  Greek  knaveries." 

"  Nay,  but  you  will  hardly  live  to  moralize  of  it, 
sir.  Oh,  no,  sir,  indeed  my  poor  arts  must  not  be 
made  public:  for  I  would  not  seem  to  boast  of  my 
accomplishments.  Harkee,  sir,  I  abhor  vain- 
glory. I  name  no  man,  sir ;  but  I  know  very  well 
there  are  snotty-nosed  people  who  regard  expe- 
dients toward  amending  the  quirks  of  fate  with 
puritan  disfavor.  Hah,  but,  signior,  what  is  that 
to  us  knights  of  the  moon,  to  us  gallants  of  gen- 
erous spirit? —  Oh,  Lord,  sir,  I  protest  I  look 
upon  such  talents  much  as  I  do  upon  my  breeches. 
I  do  consider  them  as  possessions,  not  certainly  to 
be  vaunted,  but  indispensable  to  any  gentleman 
who  hopes  to  make  a  pleasing  figure  in  the  world." 

"  All  this  bluster  is  wordy  foolery,  Master 
Branch.  What  I  have  seen,  I  have  seen;  and  you 
will  readily  guess  how  I  mean  to  use  my  knowl- 
edge." 

"  I  would  give  a  great  deal  to  find  out  what  he 
is  talking  about,"  was  Kennaston's  reflection.  "  I 

213 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

have  discovered,  at  least,  that  my  present  alias  is 
Branch,  but  that  I  am  in  reality  somebody  else." 
Aloud  he  said:  "  'Fore  God,  your  eyesight  is  of 
the  best,  Master  Skirlaw — (How  the  deuce  did  I 
know  his  name,  now?) — Hah,  I  trust  forthwith 
to  prove  if  your  sword  be  equally  keen." 

"  I  will  fight  with  no  cheats — " 

"  P  faith,  sir,  but  I  have  heard  that  wine  is  a 
famed  provoker  of  courage.  Let  us  try  the  by- 
word." So  saying,  Kennaston  picked  up  one  mug, 
and  flung  its  contents  full  in  the  boy's  face.  It 
was  white  wine,  Kennaston  noted,  for  it  did  not 
stain  Master  Skirlaw's  handsome  countenance  at 
all. 

'  The  insult  is  sufficient.  Draw,  and  have 
done !  "  the  lad  said  quietly.  His  sword  gleamed 
in  the  restive  reflections  of  that  unseen  fire  be- 
hind Kennaston. 

"  Na,  na !  but,  my  most  expeditious  cockerel, 
surely  this  place  is  a  thought  too  public?  Now 
yonder  is  a  noble  courtyard.  Oh,  ay,  favored  by 
to-night's  moon,  we  may  settle  our  matter  without 
any  hindrance  or  intolerable  scandal.  So,  I  will 
call  my  host,  that  we  may  have  the  key.  Yet, 
214 


CROSS-PURPOSES      IN      SPACIOUS      TIMES 

upon  my  gentility,  Master  Skirlaw,  I  greatly  fear 
I  shall  be  forced  to  kill  you.  Therefore  I  cry 
you  mercy,  sir,  but  is  there  no  business  on  your 
mind  which  you  would  not  willingly  leave  undis- 
charged? Save  you,  friend,  but  we  are  all 
mortal.  Hah,  to  a  lady  whom  I  need  not  name, 
it  is  an  affair  of  considerable  import  what  disposi- 
tion a  bold  man  might  make  of  this  ring — " 

Leering,  Kennaston  touched  the  great  signet- 
ring  on  the  lad's  thumb;  and  forthwith  the  uni- 
verse seemed  to  fold  about  him,  just  as  a  hand 
closes.  In  this  brief  moment  of  inexplicable 
yearning  and  self-loathing  he  comprehended  that 
the  boy's  face  was  the  face  of  Ettarre. 

And  Kennaston,  awake,  was  pleading,  with 
meaningless  words :  "  Valentia !  forgive  me,  Val- 
entia!  .  ." 


And  that  was  all.  This  dream  remained  an 
enigma.  Kennaston  could  never  know  what 
events  had  preceded  this  equivocal  instant,  or  how 
Ettarre  came  to  be  disguised  as  a  man,  or  what 
were  their  relations  in  this  dream,  nor,  above  all, 
why  he  should  have  awakened  crying  upon  the 

215 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

name  of  Valentia.  It  was  simply  a  law  that  al- 
ways when  he  was  about  to  touch  Ettarre  —  even 
unconsciously  —  everything  must  vanish ;  and 
through  the  workings  of  that  law  this  dream,  with 
many  others,  came  to  be  just  a  treasured  moment 
of  unexplainable  but  poignant  emotion. 


216 


Ill 

Horvendile  to  Ettarre. 
At  Whitehall 


TO  Kennaston  the  Lord  Protector  was  say- 
ing, with  grave  unction:     "  You  will,  I 
doubt    not,      fittingly    express    to    our 
friends  in  Virginia,  Master  Major,  those  hearty 
sentiments  which  I  have  in  the  way  of  grateful- 
ness, in  that  I  have  received  the  honor  and  safe- 
guard of  their  approbation;  for  all  which  I  humbly 
thank  them.     To  our  unfriends  in  that  colony  we 
will  let  action  speak  when  I  shall  have  completed 
God's  work  in  Ireland." 

*  Yet  the  Burgesses,  sir,  are  mostly  ill-affected; 
and  Berkeley,  to  grant  him  justice,  does  not  lack 
bravery  — " 

"  With  Heaven's  help,  Master  Major,  I  have 
of  late  dealt  with  a  king  who  did  not  lack  bravery. 
Nay,  depend  upon  it,  I  shall  some  day  grant  Wil- 
liam Berkeley  utter  justice  —  such  justice  as  I 
gave  his  master,  that  proud  curled  man,  Charles 

217 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

Stuart."  Then  the  Lord  Protector's  face  was 
changed,  and  his  harsh  countenance  became  a  lit- 
tle troubled.  "  Yes,  I  shall  do  all  this,  with 
Heaven's  help,  I  think.  But  in  good  faith,  I 
grow  old,  Master  Major.  I  move  in  a  mist,  and 
my  deeds  are  strange  to  me.  .  .  ." 

Cromwell  closed  and  unclosed  his  hands,  re- 
garding them ;  and  he  sighed.  Then  it  was  to  Et- 
tarre  he  spoke: 

u  I  leave  you  in.  Master  Major's  charge.  It 
may  be  I  shall  not  return  alive  into  England;  in- 
deed, I  grow  an  old  man  and  feel  infirmities  of 
age  stealing  upon  me.  And  so,  farewell,  my  lass. 
Truly  if  I  love  you  not  too  well,  I  err  not  on  the 
other  hand  much.  Thou  hast  been  dearer  to  me 
than  any  other  creature:  let  that  suffice."  And 
with  this  leave-taking  he  was  gone. 

As  the  door  closed  upon  Cromwell's  burly 
figure,  "  No,  be  very  careful  not  to  touch  me," 
Kennaston  implored.  "  The  dream  must  last  till 
I  have  found  out  how  through  your  aid,  Ettarre, 
this  bull-necked  country  squire  has  come  to  rule 
England.  It  is  precisely  as  I  expected.  You 
explain  Cromwell,  you  explain  Mohammed  — 
218 


HORVENDILE     TO     ETTARRE 

Richelieu  and  Tamburlaine  and  Julius  Caesar,  I 
suspect,  and,  as  I  know,  Napoleon  —  all  these  men 
who  have  inexplicably  risen  from  nothing  to 
earthly  supremacy.  How  is  it  done,  Ettarre?" 

11  It  is  not  I  who  contrive  it,  Horvendile.  I 
am  but  an  incident  in  such  men's  lives.  They 
have  known  me  —  yes :  and  knowing  me,  they 
were  bent  enough  on  their  own  ends  to  forget  that 
I  seemed  not  unlovely.  It  is  not  the  sigil  and 
the  power  the  sigil  gives  which  they  love  and 


serve  — " 


"  And  that  small  square  mirror,  such  as  Crom- 
well also  carried  : —  ?  "  Kennaston  began.  "  Or 
is  this  forbidden  talk?  " 

'  Yes,  that  mirror  aids  them.  In  that  mirror 
they  can  see  only  themselves.  So  the  mirror 
aids  toward  the  ends  they  chose,  with  open 
eyes.  .  .  .  But  you  cannot  ever  penetrate  these 
mysteries  now,  Horvendile.  The  secret  of  the 
mirror  was  offered  you  once,  and  you  would  not 
bargain.  The  secret  of  the  mirror  is  offered  to 
no  man  twice/' 

And  he  laughed  merrily.  "  What  does  it  mat- 
ter? I  am  perfectly  content.  That  is  more  than 

219 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

can  be  said  for  yonder  sanctimonious  fat  old 
rascal,  who  has  just  told  me  he  is  going  into  Ire- 
land l  for  the  propagating  of  the  gospel  of  Christ, 
the  establishing  of  truth  and  peace,  and  the  re- 
storing of  that  bleeding  nation  to  its  former  hap- 
piness and  tranquillity.'  Why  is  it  that  people  of 
executive  ability  seem  always  to  be  more  or  less 
mentally  deficient?  Now,  you  and  I  know  that, 
in  point  of  fact,  he  is  going  into  Ireland  to  burn 
villages,  massacre  women,  hang  bishops,  and  gen- 
erally qualify  his  name  for  all  time  as  a  Hibernian 
synonym  for  infamy.  Oh,  no,  the  purchase-price 
of  grandeur  is  too  great;  and  men  that  crown 
themselves  in  this  world  inevitably  perform  the 
action  with  soiled  hands.  Still,  I  wish  I  had 
known  I  was  going  visiting  to-night  in  seventeenth- 
century  England/'  said  Kennaston,  reflectively; 
"  then  I  could  have  read  up  a  bit.  I  don't  even 
know  whether  Virginia  ever  submitted  to  him.  It 
simply  shows  what  idleness  may  lead  to !  If  I 
had  studied  history  more  faithfully  I  would  have 
been  able  to-night  to  prophesy  to  Oliver  Crom- 
well about  the  results  of  his  Irish  campaigns  and 
220 


HORVENDILE     TO      ETTARRE 

so  on,  and  could  have  impressed  him  vastly  with 
my  abilities.  As  it  is,  I  have  missed  an  oppor- 
tunity which  will  probably  never  occur  again  to 
any  man  of  my  generation.  .  .  ." 


221 


IV 

Horvendile  to  Ettarre: 
At  Vaux-le-Vicomte 


w 


"\  ~Y  JHAT  fun!  "  says  Kennaston;  "  we  are 
at  Vaux-le-Vicomte,  where  Fouquet 
is  entertaining  young  Louis  Qua- 
torze.  Yonder  is  La  Valliere  —  the  thin  tow- 
headed  girl,  with  the  big  mouth.  People  are  just 
beginning  to  whisper  scandal  about  her.  And 
that  tall  jade  is  Athenais  de  Tonnay-Charente  — 
the  woman  who  is  going  to  be  Madame  de  Monte- 
span  and  control  everything  in  the  kingdom  later 
on,  you  remember.  The  King  is  not  yet  aware  of 
her  existence,  nor  has  Monsieur  de  Montespan 
been  introduced.  .  .  . 

"  The  Troupe  of  Monsieur  is  about  to  present 
an  open-air  comedy.  It  is  called  Les  Facheux  — 
The  Bores.  It  is  rumored  to  take  off  very 
cleverly  the  trivial  tedious  fashion  in  which  per- 
fectly well-meaning  people  chatter  their  way 
through  life.  But  that  more  fittingly  would  be 
222 


HORVENDILE     TO     ETTARRE 

the  theme  of  a  tragedy,  Ettarre.  Men  are  con- 
demned eternally  to  bore  one  another.  Two  hun- 
dred years  and  more  from  to-day  —  perhaps  for- 
ever —  man  will  lack  means,  or  courage,  to  voice 
his  actual  thoughts  adequately.  He  must  still 
talk  of  weather  probabilities  and  of  having  seen 
So-and-so  and  of  such  trifles,  that  mean  absolutely 
nothing  to  him  —  and  must  babble  of  these  things 
even  to  the  persons  who  are  most  dear  and  famil- 
iar to  him.  Yes,  every  reputable  man  must  des- 
perately make  small-talk,  and  echo  and  re-echo 
senseless  phrases,  until  the  crack  of  doom.  He 
will  always  be  afraid  to  bare  his  actual  thoughts 
and  interests  to  his  fellows'  possible  disapproval: 
or  perhaps  it  is  just  a  pitiable  mania  with  the 
race.  At  all  events,  one  should  not  laugh  at  this 
ageless  aspersion  and  burlesque  of  man's  intelli- 
gence as  performed  by  man  himself.  .  .  . 

'  The  comedy  is  quite  new.  A  marquis,  with 
wonderful  canions  and  a  scented  wig  like  an  edi- 
fice, told  me  it  is  by  an  upholsterer  named  Coque- 
lin,  a  barnstormer  who  ran  away  from  home 
and  has  been  knocking  about  the  provinces  unsuc- 
cessfully for  nearly  twenty  years:  and  my  little 

223 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

marquis  wondered  what  in  the  world  we  are  com- 
ing to,  when  Monsieur  le  Surintendent  takes  up 
with  that  class  of  people.  Is  not  my  little  mar- 
quis droll?  —  for  he  meant  Poquelin,  soon  to  be 
Poquelin  de  Moliere,  of  course.  Moliere,  also,  is 
a  name  which  is  not  famous  as  yet.  But  in  a 
month  or  so  it  will  be  famous  for  all  time;  and 
Monsieur  le  Surintendent  will  be  in  jail  and  for- 
gotten. .  .  . 

"You  smile,  Ettarre?  Ah,  yes,  I  understand. 
Moliere  too  adores  you.  All  poets  have  had  fit- 
ful glimpses  of  you,  Ettarre,  and  of  that  perfect 
beauty  which  is  full  of  troubling  reticences,  and 
so,  is  touched  with  something  sinister.  I  have 
written  as  to  the  price  they  pay,  these  hapless 
poets,  in  a  little  book  I  am  inditing  through  that 
fat  pudgy  body  I  wear  in  the  flesh.  .  .  .  Do  not 
frown:  I  know  it  is  forbidden  to  talk  with  you 
concerning  my  life  in  the  flesh.  .  .  . 

"  Ah,  the  King  comes  —  evidently  in  no  very 
amiable  frame  of  mind  —  and  all  rise,  like  a  flurry 
of  great  butterflies.  It  is  the  beginning  of  the 
play.  See,  a  woman  is  coming  out  of  the  big 
shell  in  the  fountain.  .  .  . 
224 


HORVENDILE     TO     ETTARRE 

"  I  wish  my  old  friend  Jonas  d'Artagnan  were 
here.  It  is  a  real  pity  he  is  only  a  character  in 
fiction  —  just  as  I  once  thought  you  were,  Ettarre. 
Eh,  what  a  fool  I  was  to  imagine  I  had  created 
you!  and  that  I  controlled  your  speech  and  do- 
ings !  I  know  much  better  now.  .  .  . 

"  Ettarre,  your  unattainable  beauty  tears  my 
heart.  Is  that  black-browed  Moliere  your  lover 
too?  What  favors  have  you  granted  him?  You 
perceive  I  am  jealous.  How  can  I  be  otherwise, 
when  there  is  nothing,  nothing  in  me  that  does  not 
cry  out  for  love  of  you?  And  I  am  forbidden 
ever  to  win  quite  to  you,  ever  to  touch  you,  ever 
to  see  you  even  save  in  my  dreams !  " 


225 


Horvendile  to  Ettarre: 
In  the  Conciergerie 


THEY  waited  in  a  big  dark  room  of  the 
Conciergerie,    with    many    other    con- 
demned   emigrants,    until    the    tumbrils 
should  come  to   fetch  them  to  the   Place  de  la 
Revolution.     They     stood     beneath     a     narrow 
barred  window,  set  high  in  the  wall,  so  that  thin 
winter    sunlight    made    the    girl's    face    visible. 
Misery  was  about  them,   death  waited  without: 
and  it  did  not  matter  a  pennyworth. 

"  Ettarre,  I  know  to-day  that  all  my  life  I  have 
been  seeking  you.  Very  long  ago  when  I  was  a 
child  it  was  made  clear  that  you  awaited  me  some- 
where ;  and,  I  recollect  now,  I  used  to  hunger  for 
your  coming  with  a  longing  which  has  not  any 
name.  And  when  I  went  about  the  dusty  world  I 
still  believed  you  waited  somewhere — till  I  should 
find  you,  as  I  inevitably  must,  or  soon  or  late.  Did 
I  go  upon  a  journey  to  some  unfamiliar  place?  — 
226 


HORVENDILE     TO      ETTARRE 

it  might  be  that  unwittingly  I  traveled  toward  your 
home.  I  could  never  pass  a  walled  garden  where 
green  tree-tops  showed  without  suspecting,  even 
while  I  shrugged  to  think  how  wild  was  the 
imagining,  that  there  was  only  the  wall  between 
us.  I  did  not  know  the  color  of  your  eyes,  but  I 
knew  what  I  would  read  there.  And  for  a 
fevered  season  I  appeared  to  encounter  many 
women  of  earth  who  resembled  you  — " 

"  All  women  resemble  me,  Horvendile. 
Whatever  flesh  they  may  wear  as  a  garment,  and 
however  time-frayed  or  dull-hued  or  stained  by 
horrible  misuse  that  garment  may  seem  to  be,  the 
wearer  of  that  garment  is  no  less  fair  than  I,  could 
any  man  see  her  quite  clearly.  Horvendile,  were 
that  not  true,  could  our  great  Author  find  any- 
where a  woman's  body  which  wickedness  and  ugli- 
ness controlled  unchecked,  all  the  big  stars  which 
light  the  universe,  and  even  the  tiny  sun  that  our 
earth  spins  about,  would  be  blown  out  like  un- 
needed  candles,  for  the  Author's  labor  would  have 
been  frustrated  and  misspent." 

1  Yes;  I  know  now  that  this  is  true.  .  .  .  See, 
Ettarre !  Yonder  woman  is  furtively  coloring  her 

227 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

cheeks  with  a  little  wet  red  rag.  She  does  not 
wish  to  seem  pale  —  or  is  it  that  she  wishes  to 
look  her  best?  —  in  the  moment  of  death.  .  .  . 
Ettarre,  my  love  for  you  whom  I  could  not  ever 
find,  was  not  of  earth,  and  I  could  not  transfer  it 
to  an  earthly  woman.  The  lively  hues,  the  lovely 
curvings  and  the  fragrant  tender  flesh  of  earth's 
women  were  deft  to  cast  their  spells ;  but  presently 
I  knew  this  magic  was  only  of  the  body.  It  might 
be  I  was  honoring  divinity;  but  it  was  certain  that 
even  in  such  case  I  was  doing  so  by  posturing  be- 
fore my  divinity's  effigy  in  tinted  clay.  Besides, 
it  is  not  possible  to  know  with  any  certainty  what 
is  going  on  in  the  round  glossy  little  heads  of 
women.  t  I  hide  no  secrets  from  you,  because  I 
love  you,'  say  they?  —  eh,  and  their  love  may  be 
anything  from  a  mild  preference  to  a  flat  lie. 
And  so,  I  came  finally  to  concede  that  all  women 
are  creatures  of  like  frailties  and  limitations  and 
reserves  as  myself,  and  I  was  most  poignantly 
lonely  when  I  was  luckiest  in  love.  Once  only,  in 
my  life  in  the  flesh,  it  seemed  to  me  that  a  woman, 
whom  I  had  abandoned,  held  in  her  hand  the  sigil 
visibly.  That  memory  has  often  troubled  me, 
228 


HORVENDILE     TO     ETTARRE 

Ettarre.  It  may  be  that  this  woman  could  have 
given  me  what  I  sought  everywhere  in  vain.  But 
I  did  not  know  this  until  it  was  too  late,  until 
the  chance  and  the  woman's  life  alike  were 
wasted.  .  .  .  And  so,  I  grew  apathetic,  senseless 
and  without  any  spurring  aspiration,  seeing  that 
all  human  beings  are  so  securely  locked  in  the 
prison  of  their  flesh." 

"  When  immortals  visit  earth  it  is  necessary 
they  assume  the  appearance  of  some  animal. 
Very  long  ago,  as  we  have  seen,  Horvendile,  that 
secret  was  discovered,  which  so  many  myths  veil 
thinly:  and  have  we  not  learned,  too,  that  the 
animal's  fleshly  body  is  a  disguise  which  it  is  pos- 
sible to  put  aside?  " 

"  That  knowledge,  so  fearfully  purchased  at 
the  Sabbat,  still  troubles  me,  Ettarre.  .  .  .  Mon- 
sieur le  Prince,  I  regret  the  circumstance,  but  — 
as  you  see  —  my  snuff-box  is  quite  empty.  Ah, 
but  yes,  as  you  very  justly  observe,  rappee,  repose 
and  rationality  are  equally  hard  to  come  by  in 
these  mad  days.  ...  Is  that  not  droll,  Ettarre? 
This  unvenerable  old  Prince  de  Gatinais  —  once 
Grand  Duke  of  Noumaria,  you  remember  —  has 

229 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

been  guilty  in  his  career  of  every  iniquity  and 
meanness  and  cowardice:  now,  facing  instant 
death,  he  finds  time  to  think  of  snuff  and  phrase- 
making.  .  .  .  But  —  to  go  back  a  little  —  I  had 
thought  the  Sabbat  would  be  so  different!  One 
imagined  there  would  be  cauldrons,  and  hags  upon 
prancing  broomsticks,  and  a  black  goat,  of 


course  — " 

"How  much  more  terrible  it  is  —  and  how 
beautiful!" 

"  Yet  —  even  now  I  may  not  touch  you,  Et- 
tarre." 

"  My  friend,  all  men  have  striven  to  do  that; 
and  I  have  evaded  each  one  of  them  at  the  last, 
and  innumerable  are  the  ways  of  my  elusion. 
There  is  no  man  but  has  loved  me,  no  man  that 
has  forgotten  me,  and  none  but  has  attempted  to 
express  that  which  he  saw  and  understood  when  I 
was  visible." 

"  Do  I  not  know?  There  is  no  beauty  in  the 
world  save  those  stray  hints  of  you,  Ettarre. 
Canvas  and  stone  and  verse  speak  brokenly  of 
you  sometimes ;  all  music  yearns  toward  you,  Et- 
tarre, all  sunsets  whisper  of  you,  and  it  is  because 
230 


HORVENDILE     TO     ETTARRE 

they  waken  memories  of  you  that  the  eyes  of  all 
children  so  obscurely  trouble  and  delight  us. 
Ettarre,  your  unattainable  beauty  tears  my  heart. 
There  is  nothing,  nothing  in  me  that  does  not  cry 
out  for  love  of  you.  And  it  is  the  cream  of  a  vile 
jest  that  I  am  forbidden  ever  to  win  quite  to  you, 
ever  to  touch  you,  ever  to  see  you  even  save  in  my 
dreams !  " 

"  Already  this  dream  draws  toward  an  end,  my 
poor  Horvendile." 

And  he  saw  that  the  great  doors  —  which  led 
to  death  —  were  unclosing:  and  beyond  them  he 
saw  confusedly  a  mob  of  red-capped  men,  of 
malignant  frenzied  women,  of  wide-eyed  little 
children,  and  the  staid  officials,  chatting  pleasantly 
among  themselves,  who  came  to  fetch  that  day's 
tale  of  those  condemned  to  the  guillotine.  But 
more  vividly  Kennaston  saw  Ettarre  and  how 
tenderly  she  smiled,  in  thin  wintry  sunlight,  as  she 
touched  Kennaston  upon  the  breast,  so  that  the 
dream  might  end  and  he  might  escape  the  guillo- 
tine. 


231 


VI 

Of  One  Enigma  that 
Threatened  to  Prove 
Allegorical 

THEN  again  Kennaston  stood  alone  be- 
fore a  tall  window,  made  up  of  many 
lozenge-shaped  panes  of  clear  glass  set 
in  lead  framework.     He  had  put  aside  one  of 
the  two  great  curtains  —  of  a  very  fine  stuff  like 
gauze,   stitched  over  with  transparent  glittering 
beetle-wings,    and    embroidered    with    tiny    seed 
pearls  —  which  hung  before  this  window. 

Snow  covered  the  expanse  of  house-tops  with- 
out, and  the  sky  without  was  glorious  with  chill 
stars.  That  white  city  belonged  to  him,  he  knew, 
with  a  host  of  other  cities.  He  was  the  strongest 
of  kings.  People  dreaded  him,  he  knew;  and  he 
wondered  why  any  one  should  esteem  a  frail  weak- 
ling such  as  he  to  be  formidable.  The  hand  of 
this  great  king  —  his  own  hand,  that  held  aside 
the  curtain  before  him  —  was  shriveled  and  color- 
232 


OF          ONE          ENIGMA 

less  as  lambs'  wools.  It  was  like  a  horrible  bird- 
claw. 

("But  then  I  have  the  advantage  of  remem- 
bering the  twentieth  century,"  he  thought,  fleet- 
ingly,  "  and  all  my  contemporaries  are  supersti- 
tious ignorant  folk.  It  is  strange,  but  in  this 
dream  I  appear  to  be  an  old  man.  That  never 
happened  before.") 

A  remote  music  resounded  in  his  ears,  and  cloy- 
ing perfumes  were  about  him.  .  * '>. 

"  I  want  to  be  happy.  And  that  is  impossible, 
because  there  is  no  happiness  anywhere  in  the 
world.  I,  a  great  king,  say  this  —  I,  who  am 
known  in  unmapped  lands,  and  before  whom  na- 
tions tremble.  For  there  are  but  three  desirable 
things  in  life  —  love  and  power  and  wisdom :  and 
I,  the  king,  have  sounded  the  depths  of  these,  and 
in  none  is  happiness." 

Despairing  words  came  to  him  now,  and  welled 
to  his  lips,  in  a  sort  of  chaunt: 

"  I  am  sad  to-night,  for  I  remember  that  I 
once  loved  a  woman.  She  was  white  as  the 
moon;  her  hair  was  a  gold  cloud;  she  had  un- 
troubled eyes.  She  was  so  fair  that  I  longed  for 

233 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

her  until  my  heart  was  as  the  heart  of  a  God. 
But  she  sickened  and  died:  worms  had  their  will 
of  her,  not  I.  So  I  took  other  women,  and  my 
bed  was  never  lonely.  Bright  poisonous  women 
were  brought  to  me,  from  beyond  the  sunset,  from 
the  Fortunate  Islands,  from  Invallis  and  Planasia 
even;  and  these  showed  me  nameless  endearments 
and  many  curious  perverse  pleasures.  But  I  was 
not  able  to  forget  that  woman  who  was  denied  me 
because  death  had  taken  her :  and  I  grew  a-weary 
of  love,  for  I  perceived  that  all  which  has  known 
life  must  suffer  death. 

"  There  was  no  people  anywhere  who  could 
withstand  my  armies.  We  traveled  far  in  search 
of  such  a  people.  My  armies  rode  into  a  coun- 
try of  great  heat  and  endless  sands,  and  con- 
tended with  the  Presbyter's  brown  horsemen,  who 
fought  with  arrows  and  brightly  painted  bows; 
and  we  slew  them.  My  armies  entered  into  a 
land  where  men  make  their  homes  in  the  shells  of 
huge  snails,  and  feed  upon  white  worms  which 
have  black  heads ;  and  we  slew  them.  My  armies 
passed  into  a  land  where  a  people  that  have  no 
language  dwell  in  dark  caves  under  the  earth,  and 
234 


OF          ONE  ENIGMA 

worship  a  stone  that  has  sixty  colors ;  and  we  slew 
them,  teaching  ruthlessly  that  all  which  has  known 
life  must  suffer  death. 

"  Many  stiff-necked  kings,  still  clad  in  purple 
and  scarlet  and  wearing  gold  crowns  —  monarchs 
whose  proud  faces,  for  all  that  these  men  were 
my  slaves,  kept  their  old  fashion  and  stayed 
changeless  as  the  faces  of  statues  —  such  were  my 
lackeys:  and  I  burned  walled  cities.  Empires 
were  my  playthings,  but  I  had  no  son  to  inherit 
after  me.  I  had  no  son  —  only  that  dead  hor- 
rible mangled  worm,  born  dead,  that  I  remember 
seeing  very  long  ago  where  the  woman  I  loved  lay 
dead.  That  would  have  been  my  son  had  the 
thing  lived  —  a  greater  and  a  nobler  king  than  I. 
But  death  willed  otherwise:  the  life  that  moved 
in  me  was  not  to  be  perpetuated:  and  so,  the  heart 
in  my  body  grew  dried  and  little  and  shriveled, 
like  a  parched  pea :  for  I  perceived  that  all  which 
has  known  life  must  suffer  death. 

"  Then  I  turned  from  warfare,  and  sought  for 
wisdom.  I  learned  all  that  it  is  permitted  any 
man  to  know  —  oh,  I  learned  more  than  is  per- 
missible. Have  I  not  summoned  demons  from 

235 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

the  depths  of  the  sea,  and  at  the  Sabbat  have  I 
not  smitten  haggard  Gods  upon  the  cheek?  Yea, 
at  Phigalia  did  I  not  pass  beneath  the  earth  and 
strive  with  a  terrible  Black  Woman,  who  had  the 
head  of  a  horse,  and  wrest  from  her  what  I  de- 
sired to  know?  Have  I  not  talked  with  Mors- 
koi,  that  evil  formless  ruler  of  the  Sea-Folk,  and 
made  a  compact  with  him?  And  has  not  even 
Phobetor,  whose  real  name  may  not  be  spoken, 
revealed  to  me  his  secrets,  at  a  paid  price  of  which 
I  do  not  care  to  think,  now  I  perceive  that  all 
which  has  known  life  must  suffer  death? 

"  Yea,  by  the  Hoofs  of  the  Goat !  it  seems  to  me 
that  I  have  done  these  things;  yet  how  may  I  be 
sure?  For  I  have  learned,  too,  that  all  man's 
senses  lie  to  him,  that  nothing  we  see  or  hear  or 
touch  is  truthfully  reported,  and  that  the  visible 
world  at  best  stands  like  an  island  in  an  uncharted 
ocean  which  is  a  highway,  none  the  less,  for  much 
alien  traffic.  Yet,  it  seems  to  me  that  I  found 
means  whereby  the  universe  I  live  in  was  stripped 
of  many  veils.  It  seems  to  me  that  I  do  not  re- 
gret having  done  this.  .  .  .  But  presently  I  shall 
be  dead,  and  all  my  dearly-purchased,  wearily- 
236 


OF          ONE  ENIGMA 

earned  wisdom  must  lie  quiet  in  a  big  stone  box, 
and  all  which  has  known  life  must  suffer  death. 

"  For  death  is  mighty,  and  against  it  naught 
can  avail:  it  is  terrible  and  strong  and  cruel,  and 
a  lover  of  bitter  jests.  And  presently,  whatever 
I  have  done  or  learned  or  dreamed,  I  must  lie 
helpless  where  worms  will  have  their  will  of  me, 
and  neither  the  worms  nor  I  will  think  it  odd. 
For  all  which  has  known  life  must  suffer 
death." 

A  remote  music  resounded  in  his  ears,  and 
cloying  perfumes  were  about  him.  Turning,  he 
saw  that  the  walls  of  this  strange  room  were  of 
iridescent  lacquer,  worked  with  bulls  and  apes  and 
parrots  in  raised  gold:  black  curtains  screened  the 
doors:  and  the  bare  floor  was  of  smooth  sea- 
green  onyx.  A  woman  stood  there,  who  did  not 
speak,  but  only  waited.  At  length  he  knew  what 
terror  was,  for  terror  possessed  him  utterly;  and 
yet  he  was  elated. 

"  You  have  come,  then,  at  last.  .  .  ." 
'  To  you  at  last  I  have  come  as  I  come  to  all 
men,"  she  answered,  "  in  my  good  hour."     And 
Ettarre's  hands,  gleaming  and  half-hidden  with 

237 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

jewels,  reached  toward  his  hands,  so  gladly  raised 
to  hers;  and  the  universe  seemed  to  fold  about 
him,  just  as  a  hand  closes. 


Was  it  as  death  she  came  to  him  in  this  dream? 
—  as  death  made  manifest  as  man's  liberation 
from  much  vain  toil?  Kennaston,  at  least,  pre- 
ferred to  think  his  dreams  were  not  degenerating 
into  such  hackneyed  crude  misleading  allegories. 
Or  perhaps  it  was  as  ghost  of  the  dead  woman  he 
had  loved  she  came,  now  that  he  was  age-stricken 
and  nearing  death,  for  in  this  one  dream  alone  he 
had  seemed  to  be  an  old  man. 

Kennaston  could  not  ever  be  sure;  the  broken 
dream  remained  an  enigma;  but  he  got  sweet 
terror  and  happiness  of  the  dream,  for  all  that, 
tasting  his  moment  of  inexplicable  poignant  emo- 
tion: and  therewith  he  was  content. 


238 


VII 

Treats  of  Witches,  Mixed 
Drinks,  and  the  Weather 


MEANWHILE,  I  used  to  see  Kennaston 
nearly  every  day.   .  .   .  Looking  back, 
I  recollect  one  afternoon  when  the  Ken- 
nastons  were  calling  on  us.     It  was  the  usual  sort 
of  late-afternoon  call  customarily  exchanged  by 
country  neighbors.  .  .  . 

"  We  have  been  intending  to  come  over  for 
ever  so  long,"  Mrs.  Kennaston  explained.  "  But 
we  have  been  in  such  a  rush,  getting  ready  for  the 


summer  — " 


'*  We  only  got  the  carpets  up  yesterday,"  my 
wife  assented.  "  Riggs  just  kept  promising  and 
promising,  but  he  did  finally  get  a  man  out  — " 

'*  Well,  the  roads  are  in  pretty  bad  shape,"  I 
suggested,  "  and  those  vans  are  fearfully 
heavy  — " 

"  Still,  if  they  would  just  be  honest  about  it," 
Mrs.  Kennaston  bewailed — "  and  not  keep  put- 

239 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

ting  you  off  —  No,  I  really  don't  think  I  ever 
saw  the  Loop  road  in  worse  condition  — " 

"  It's  the  long  rainy  spell  we  ought  to  have 
had  in  May,"  I  informed  her.  "  The  seasons 
are  changing  so,  though,  nowadays  that  nobody 
can  keep  up  with  them." 

"  Yes,  Felix  was  saying  only  to-day  that  we 
seem  no  longer  to  have  any  real  spring.  We 
simply  go  straight  from  winter  into  summer." 

"  I  was  endeavoring  to  persuade  her,"  Ken- 
naston  amended,  "  that  it  was  foolish  to  go  away 
as  long  as  it  stays  cool  as  it  is." 

"  Oh,  yes,  now!  "  my  wife  conceded.  "  But 
the  paper  says  we  are  in  for  a  long  heat  period 
about  the  fifteenth.  For  my  part,  I  think  July 
is  always  our  worst  month." 

"  It  is  just  that  you  feel  the  heat  so  much  more 
during  the  first  warm  days,"  I  suggested. 

"  Oh,  no!"  my  wife  said,  earnestly;  "  the 
nights  are  cool  in  August,  and  you  can  stand  the 
days.  Of  course,  there  are  apt  to  be  a  few  mos- 
quitoes in  September,  but  not  many  if  you  are 
careful  about  standing  water  — " 

"  The  drain-pipe  to  the  gutter  around  our 
240 


WITCHES,  MIXED  DRINKS,  AND  WEATHER 

porch  got  stopped  somehow,  last  year  " —  this 
Kennaston  contributed,  morosely  — u  and  we  had 
a  terrible  time." 

" —  Then  there  is  always  so  much  to  do,  get- 
ting the  children  started  at  school,"  my  wife  con- 
tinued — "  everything  under  the  sun  needed  at  the 
last  moment,  of  course !  And  the  way  they 
change  all  the  school-books  every  year  is  simply 
ridiculous.  So,  if  I  had  my  way,  we  would  al- 
ways go  away  early,  and  be  back  again  in  good 
time  to  get  things  in  shape  • — " 

"  Oh,  yes,  if  we  could  have  our  way!  " —  Mrs. 
Kennaston  could  not  deny  that — "  but  don't 
your  servants  always  want  August  off,  to  go  home  ? 
I  know  ours  do:  and,  my  dear,  you  simply  don't 
dare  say  a  word." 

"  That  is  the  great  trouble  in  the  country,"  I 
philosophized  — "  in  fact,  we  suburbanites  arc 
pretty  well  hag-ridden  by  our  dusky  familiars. 
The  old-time  darkies  are  dying  out,  and  the 
younger  generation  is  simply  worthless.  And 
with  no  more  sense  of  gratitude  —  Why,  Moira 
hired  a  new  girl  last  week,  to  help  out  upstairs, 
and—" 

241 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

"  Oh,  yes,  hag-ridden !  like  the  unfortunate 
magicians  in  old  stories  I  "  Kennaston  broke  in,  on 
a  sudden.  "  We  were  speaking  about  such  things 
the  other  day,  you  remember?  I  have  been  think- 
ing—  You  see,  every  one  tells  me  that,  apart 
from  being  a  master  soapboiler,  Mr.  Harrowby, 
you  are  by  way  of  being  an  authority  on  witch- 
craft and  similar  murky  accomplishments?  " 
And  he  ended  with  that  irritating  little  noise,  that 
was  nearly  a  snigger,  and  just  missed  being  a 
cough. 

"  It  so  often  comes  over  me,"  says  Moira  — 
which  happens  to  be  my  wife's  name  — "  that 
Dick,  all  by  himself,  is  really  Harrowby  &  Sons, 
Inc." —  she  spoke  as  if  I  were  some  sort  of  writ- 
ing-fluid— "  and  has  his  products  on  sale  all  over 
the  world.  I  look  on  him  in  a  new  light,  so  to 
speak,  when  I  realize  that  daily  he  is  gladdening 
Calcutta  with  his  soaps,  delighting  London  with 
his  dentifrice,  and  comforting  Nova  Zembla  with 
his  talcum  powder." 

"  Well,  but  I  inherited  all  that.  It  isn't  fair 
to  fling  ancestral  soap-vats  in  my  face,"  I  reminded 
her.  "  And  yes,  I  have  dabbled  a  bit  in  forces 
242 


WITCHES,  MIXED  DRINKS,  AND  WEATHER 

that  aren't  as  yet  thoroughly  understood,  Mr. 
Kennaston.  I  wouldn't  go  so  far  as  to  admit  to 
witchcraft,  though.  Very  certainly  I  never  at- 
tended a  Sabbat." 

I  recollect  now  how  his  face  changed.  "  And 
what  in  heaven's  name  was  a  Sabbat?"  Then 
he  fidgeted,  and  crossed  his  legs  the  other  way. 

"  Well !  it  was  scarcely  heaven's  name  that  was 
invoked  there,  if  old  tales  are  to  be  trusted.  Tra- 
ditionally, the  Sabbat  was  a  meeting  attended  by 
all  witches  in  satisfactory  diabolical  standing, 
lightly  attired  in  smears  of  various  magical  oint- 
ments; and  their  vehicle  of  transportation  to  this 
outing  was,  of  course,  the  traditional  broomstick. 
Good  Friday,"  I  continued,  seeing  they  all  seemed 
willing  enough  to  listen,  u  was  the  favorite  date 
for  these  gatherings,  which  were  likewise  some- 
times held  on  St.  John's  Eve,  on  Walburga's  Eve, 
and  on  Hallowe'en  Night.  The  diversions  were 
numerous:  there  was  feasting,  music,  and  danc- 
ing, with  the  devil  performing  obligates  on  the 
pipes  or  a  cittern,  and  not  infrequently  preaching 
a  burlesque  sermon.  He  usually  attended  in  the 
form  of  a  monstrous  goat;  and  when  —  when  not 

243 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

amorously  inclined,  often  thrashed  the  witches 
with  their  own  broomsticks.  The  more  practical 
pursuits  of  the  evening  included  the  opening  of 
graves,  to  despoil  dead  bodies  of  finger-  and 
toe-joints,  and  certain  portions  of  the  winding- 
sheet,  with  which  to  prepare  a  powder  that  had 
strange  uses.  .  .  .  But  the  less  said  of  that,  the 
better.  Here,  also,  the  devil  taught  his  disciples 
how  to  make  and  christen  statues  of  wax,  so  that 
by  roasting  these  effigies  the  persons  whose  names 
they  bore  would  be  wasted  away  by  sickness." 

"  I  see,"  says  Kennaston,  intently  regarding  his 
fingernails:  "they  must  have  been  highly  enjoy- 
able social  outings,  all  around." 

"  They  must  have  been  worse  than  family  re- 
unions," put  in  Mrs,  Kennaston,  and  affected  to 
shudder. 

"  Indeed,  there  are  certain  points  of  resem- 
blance," I  conceded,  "  in  the  general  atmosphere 
of  jealous  hostility  and  the  ruthless  digging-up  of 
what  were  better  left  buried." 

Then  Kennaston  asked  carelessly,  "  But  how 
could  such  absurd  superstitions  ever  get  any  hold 
on  people,  do  you  suppose?  " 
244 


WITCHES,  MIXED  DRINKS,  AND  WEATHER 

"  That  would  require  rather  a  lengthy  explana- 
tion —  Why,  no,"  I  protested,  in  answer  to  his 
shrug;  "  the  Sabbat  is  not  inexplicable.  Hahn- 
Kraftner's  book,  or  Herbert  Perlin's  either,  will 
give  you  a  very  fair  notion  of  what  the  Sabbat 
really  was  —  something  not  in  the  least  grotesque, 
but  infinitely  more  awe-inspiring  than  is  hinted  by 
any  traditions  in  popular  use.  And  Le  Bret, 
whom  bookdealers  rightly  list  as  '  curious  ' — " 

"  Yes.  I  have  read  those  books,  it  happens. 
My  uncle  had  them,  you  know.  But " —  Ken- 
naston  was  plainly  not  quite  at  ease  — "  but,  after 
all,  is  it  not  more  wholesome  to  dismiss  such  theo- 
ries as  fantastic  nonsense,  even  if  they  are  per- 
fectly true?  " 

'  Why,  not  of  necessity,"  said  I.  "  As  touches 
what  we  call  the  *  occult,'  delusion  after  delusion 
has  been  dissipated,  of  course,  and  much  jubilant 
pother  made  over  the  advance  in  knowledge. 
But  the  last  of  his  delusions,  which  man  has  yet 
to  relinquish,  is  that  he  invented  them.  This  too 
must  be  surrendered  with  time;  and  already  we 
are  beginning  to  learn  that  many  of  these  wild 
errors  are  the  illegitimate  children  of  grave 

245 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

truths.  Science  now  looks  with  new  respect  on 
folk-lore  — " 

"  Mr.  Kennaston,"  says  Moira,  laughing,  "  I 
warn  you,  if  you  start  Dick  on  his  hobbies,  he  will 
talk  us  all  to  death.  So,  come  into  the  house, 
and  I  will  mix  you  two  men  a  drink." 

And  we  obeyed  her,  and  —  somehow  —  got  to 
talking  of  the  recent  thunderstorms,  and  getting 
in  our  hay,  and  kindred  topics.  < 


Yes,  it  was  much  the  usual  sort  of  late-after- 
noon call  customarily  exchanged  by  country  neigh- 
bors. I  remember  Moira's  yawning  as  she  closed 
the  cellarette,  and  her  wondering  how  Mrs.  Ken- 
naston could  keep  on  rouging  and  powdering  at 
her  age,  and  why  Kennaston  never  had  anything 
in  particular  to  say  for  himself? 

"  Do  you  suppose  it  is  because  he  has  a  swelled 
head  over  his  little  old  book,  or  is  he  just  nat- 
urally stupid?  "  she  wanted  to  know. 


246 


Book  Sixth 


"Alas!  the  sprite  that  haunts  us 
Deceives  our  rash  desire; 
It  whispers  of  the  glorious  gods, 
And  leaves  us  in  the  mire: 
We  cannot  learn  the  cipher 
Inscribed  upon  our  cell ; 
Stars  taunt  us  with  a  mystery 
Which  we  lack  lore  to  spell." 


Sundry  Disclosures  of  the 
Press 


SUCH  as  has  been  described  was  now  Felix 
Kennaston's  manner  of  living,  which,  as 
touches  utilitarian  ends,  it  might  be  wiser 
forthwith  to  dismiss  as  bred  by  the  sickly  fancies 
of  an  idle  man  bemused  with  unprofitable  reading. 
By  day  his  half  of  the  sigil  lay  hidden  in  the 
library,  under  a  pile  of  unused  bookplates.  But 
nightly  this  bit  of  metal  was  taken  with  him  to 
bed,  in  order  that,  when  held  so  as  to  reflect  the 
candlelight  —  for  this  was  always  necessary  —  it 
might  induce  the  desired  dream  of  Ettarre;  and 
that,  so,  Horvendile  would  be  freed  of  Felix 
Kennaston  for  eight  hours  uninterruptedly. 

In  our  social  ordering  Felix  Kennaston  stayed 
worthy  of  consideration  in  Lichfield,  both  as  a 
celebrity  of  sorts  and  as  the  owner  of  four  bank- 
accounts;  and  colloquially,  as  likewise  has  been 
recorded,  he  was  by  ordinary  dismissed  from  our 

249 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 


patronizing  discussion  as  having  long  been 
"  queer,"  and  in  all  probability  "  a  dope-fiend." 
In  Lichfield,  as  elsewhere,  a  man's  difference  from 
his  fellows  cannot  comfortably  be  conceded  ex- 
cept by  assuming  the  difference  to  be  to  his  dis- 
credit. 

Meanwhile,  the  Felix  Kennaston  who  owned 
two  motors  and  had  money  in  four  banks,  went 
with  his  wife  about  their  round  of  decorous  so- 
cial duties;  and  the  same  Felix  Kennaston,  with 
leisured  joy  in  the  task,  had  completed  The  Tinc- 
tured Fell  —  which,  as  you  now  know,  was 
woven  from  the  dreamstuff  Horvendile  had 
fetched  out  of  that  fair  country  —  very  far  from 
Lichfield  —  which  is  bounded  by  Avalon  and 
Phaeacia  and  Sea-coast  Bohemia,  and  the  contigu- 
ous forests  of  Arden  and  Broceliande,  and  on 
the  west  of  course  by  the  Hesperides. 

Then,  just  before  The  Tinctured  Veil  was  pub- 
lished, an  accident  happened. 

Fate,  as  always  frugal  of  display,  used  simple 
tools.  Kennaston,  midway  in  dressing,  found  he 
had  no  more  mouthwash.  He  went  into  his 
wife's  bathroom,  in  search  of  a  fresh  bottle. 
250 


SUNDRY     DISCLOSURES     OF     THE     PRESS 

Kathleen  was  in  Lichfield  for  the  afternoon,  at 
a  card  party;  and  thus  it  was  brought  about  that 
Kennaston  found,  lying  in  the  corner  of  her  bath- 
room press,  and  hidden  by  a  bottle  of  Harrowby's 
No.  7  Dental  Delight,  the  missing  half  of  the 
sigil  of  Scoteia  —  the  half  which  Ettarre  had 
retained.  There  was  no  doubt  about  it.  He 
held  it  in  his  hand. 

"  Now,  that,"  said  Felix  Kennaston,  aloud,  "  is 
rather  curious." 

He  went  into  the  library,  and  lifted  the  little 
pile  of  unused  bookplates;  and  presently  the  two 
pieces  of  metal  lay  united  upon  his  wife's  dress- 
ing-table, between  the  manicure-set  and  the  pin- 
cushion, forming  a  circle  not  quite  three  inches 
in  diameter,  just  such  as  he  had  seen  once  upon 
the  brow  of  Mother  Isis,  and  again  in  the  Didas- 
calion  when  Ptolemy  of  the  Fat  Paunch  was  mas- 
ter of  Egypt. 

"  So,  Kathleen  somehow  found  the  other  half. 
She  has  had  it  from  the  first.  .  .  .  But  naturally 
I  never  spoke  of  Felix  Kennaston;  it  was  for- 
bidden, and  besides,  the  sigil's  crowning  grace 
was  that  it  enabled  me  to  forget  his  existence. 

251 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

And  the  girl's  name  in  the  printed  book  is  Alison. 
And  Horvendile  is  such  an  unimportant  character 
that  Kathleen,  reading  the  tale  hastily  —  I 
thought  she  simply  skimmed  it !  —  did  not  remem- 
ber that  name  either;  and  so,  did  not  associate 
the  dream  names  in  any  way  with  my  book,  nor 
with  me.  .  .  .  She  too,  then,  does  not  know  — 
as  yet.  .  .  .  And,  for  all  that,  Kathleen,  the  real 
Kathleen,  is  Ettarre  — '  whatever  flesh  she  may 
wear  as  a  garment!  '  .  .  .  Or,  rather,  Ettarre 
is  to  Kathleen  as  Horvendile  —  but  am  I  truly 
that  high-hearted  ageless  being?  Eh,  I  do  not 
know,  for  we  touch  mystery  everywhere.  I  only 
know  it  is  the  cream  of  the  jest  that  day  by  day, 
while  that  lean,  busy  sharp-eyed  stranger,  whose 
hands  and  lips  my  own  hands  and  lips  meet  daily, 
because  this  contact  has  become  a  part  of  the 
day's  routine  — " 

But  he  was  standing  before  his  wife's  dressing- 
table,  and  the  mirror  showed  him  a  squat  insig- 
nificant burgess  in  shirtsleeves,  with  grizzled  un- 
tidied  hair,  and  mild  accommodating  pale  eyes, 
and  an  inadequate  nose,  with  huge  nostrils,  and 
a  spacious  naked-looking  upper-lip.  That  was 
252 


SUNDRY    DISCLOSURES     OF     THE     PRESS 

Felix  Kennaston,  so  far  as  all  other  people  were 
concerned  save  Kathleen.  He  smiled;  and  in 
the  act  he  noted  that  the  visual  result  was  to 
make  Felix  Kennaston  appear  particularly  inane' 
and  sheepish.  But  he  knew  now  that  did  not 
matter.  Nor  did  it  greatly  matter  —  his 
thoughts  ran  —  that  it  was  never  permitted  any 
man,  not  even  in  his  dreams,  ever  to  touch  the 
hands  and  lips  of  Ettarre. 

So  he  left  there  the  two  pieces  of  metal,  united 
at  last  upon  his  wife's  dressing-table,  between  the 
manicure-set  and  the  pincushion,  where  on  her 
return  she  might  find  them,  and,  finding,  under- 
stand all  that  which  he  lacked  words  to  tell. 


253 


Considerations  Toward 
Sunset 


THEN  Kennaston  went  for  a  meditative 
walk  in  the  abating  glare  of  that  day's 
portentous    sunset,    wherein    the    tree- 
trunks  westward  showed  like  the  black  bars  of  a 
grate.     It  was  in  just  such  a  twilight  that  Hor- 
vendile  had  left  Storisende.  .  .  . 

And  presently  he  came  to  a  field  which  had 
been  mowed  that  week.  The  piled  hay  stood 
in  rounded  heaps,  suggestive  to  Kennaston  of 
shaggy  giant  heads  bursting  through  the  soil,  as 
in  the  old  myth  of  Cadmus  and  the  dragon's 
teeth;  beyond  were  glittering  cornfields,  whose 
tremulous  green  was  shot  with  brown  and  sickly 
yellow  now,  and  which  displayed  a  host  of  tassels 
like  ruined  plumes.  Autumn  was  at  hand.  And 
as  Kennaston  approached,  a  lark  —  as  though 
shot  vehemently  from  the  ground  —  rose  sing- 
ing. Straight  into  the  air  it  rose,  and  was  lost 
254 


CONSIDERATIONS     TOWARD     SUNSET 

in  the  sun's  abating  brilliance;  but  still  you  could 
hear  its  singing;  and  then,  as  suddenly,  the  bird 
dropped  earthward. 

Kennaston  snapped  his  fingers.  "  Aha,  my 
old  acquaintance !  "  he  said,  "  but  now  I  envy 
you  no  longer!  "  Then  he  walked  onward,  think- 
ing. .  .  . 


'What  did  I  think  of?"  he  said,  long  after- 
ward — "  oh,  of  nothing  with  any  real  clarity. 
You  see  —  I  touched  mystery  everywhere.  ... 

"  But  I  thought  of  Kathleen's  first  kiss,  and  of 
the  first  time  I  came  to  her  alone  after  we  were 
married,  and  of  our  baby  that  was  born  dead. 
...  I  was  happier  than  I  had  ever  been  in  any 
dream.  ...  I  saw  that  the  ties  of  our  ordinary 
life  here  in  the  flesh  have  their  own  mystic  strength 
and  sanctity.  I  comprehended  why  in  our  highest 
sacrament  we  pre-figure  with  holy  awe,  not  things 
of  the  mind  and  spirit,  but  flesh  and  blood.  .  .  . 
A  man  and  his  wife,  barring  stark  severance,  grow 
with  time  to  be  one  person,  you  see;  and  it  is  not 
so  much  the  sort  of  person  as  the  indivisibility 
that  matters  with  them.  .  .  . 

255 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

"  And  I  thought  of  how  in  evoking  that  poor 
shadow  of  Ettarre  which  figures  in  my  book,  I 
had  consciously  written  of  my  dear  wife  as  I  re- 
membered her  when  we  were  young  together.  My 
vocabulary  and  my  ink  went  to  the  making  of  the 
book's  Ettarre:  but  with  them  went  Kathleen's 
youth  and  purity  and  tenderness  and  serenity  and 
loving-kindness  toward  all  created  things  save  the 
women  I  had  flirted  with  —  so  that  she  contributed 
more  than  I.  ... 

"  And  I  saw  that  the  good-smelling  earth  about 
my  pudgy  pasty  body,  and  my  familiar  home  —  as 
I  turned  back  my  pudgy  pasty  face  toward  Alcluid, 
bathed  now  in  the  sun's  gold  —  were  lovely  kindly 
places.  Outside  were  kings  and  wars  and  thun- 
derous zealots,  and  groaning,  rattling  thunderous 
printing-presses,  too,  that  were  turning  off  a  book 
called  The  Tinctured  Veil,  whereinto  had  been 
distilled  and  bottled  up  the  very  best  that  was  in 
Felix  Kennaston;  but  here  was  just  '  a  citadel  of 
peace  in  the  heart  of  the  trouble.'  And  —  well, 
I  was  satisfied.  People  do  not  think  much  when 
they  are  satisfied." 
256 


CONSIDERATIONS     TOWARD     SUNSET 

But  he  did  not  walk  long;  for  it  was  growing 
chilly,  as  steadily  dusk  deepened,  in  this  twilight 
so  like  that  in  which  Horvendile  had  left  Storis- 
ende  forever. 


257 


One  Way  of  Elusion 


KATHLEEN  was  seated  at  the  dressing- 
table,  arranging  her  hair,  when  Kennas- 
ton  came  again  into  her  rooms.  He 
went  forward,  and  without  speaking,  laid  one 
hand  upon  each  shoulder. 

Now  for  an  instant  their  eyes  met  in  the  mir- 
ror; and  the  woman's  face  he  saw  there,  or 
seemed  to  see  there,  yearned  toward  him,  and 
was  unutterably  loving,  and  compassionate,  and 
yet  was  resolute  in  its  denial.  For  it  denied  him, 
no  matter  with  what  wistful  tenderness,  or  with 
what  wonder  at  his  folly.  Just  for  a  moment  he 
seemed  to  see  that;  and  then  he  doubted,  for 
Kathleen's  lips  lifted  complaisantly  to  his,  and 
Kathleen's  matter-of-fact  face  was  just  as  he  was 
used  to  seeing  it. 

And  thus,  with  no  word  uttered,  Felix  Kennas- 
ton  understood  that  his  wife  must  disclaim  any 
knowledge  of  the  sigil  of  Scoteia,  should  he  be 

258 


ONE       WAY       OF       ELUSION 

bold  enough  to  speak  of  it.  He  knew  he  would 
never  dare  to  speak  of  it  in  that  constricted  hide- 
bound kindly  life  which  he  and  Kathleen  shared 
in  the  flesh.  To  speak  of  it  would  mean  to  be- 
come forthwith  what  people  glibly  called  insane. 
So  Horvendile  and  Ettarre  were  parted  for  all 
time.  And  Kathleen  willed  this,  no  matter  with 
what  wistful  tenderness,  and  because  of  motives 
which  he  would  never  know  —  for  how  could  one 
tell  what  was  going  on  inside  that  small  round 
head  his  hand  was  caressing?  Still,  he  could 
guess  at  her  reasons;  and  he  comprehended  now 
that  Ettarre  had  spoken  a  very  terrible  truth  — 
"  All  men  I  must  evade  at  the  last,  and  innumera- 
ble are  the  ways  of  my  elusion." 

:<  Well,  dear,"  he  said  aloud;  "and  was  it  a 
pleasant  party?  " 

"  Oh,  so-so,"  Kathleen  conceded;  "but  it  was 
rather  a  mixed  crowd.  Hadn't  you  better  hurry 
and  change  your  clothes,  Felix?  It  is  almost  din- 
ner-time, and,  you  know,  we  have  seats  for  the 
theater  to-night." 

Quite  as  if  he,  too,  were  thinking  of  trifles, 
Felix  Kennaston  took  up  the  two  bits  of  metal. 

259 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

"  I  have  often  wondered  what  this  design  meant/' 
he  said,  idly  —  not  looking  at  her,  and  hopeful 
that  this  much  allusion  at  least  was  permitted  to 
what  they  dared  not  speak  of  openly. 

"  Perhaps  Mr.  Harrowby  could  tell  you." 
Kathleen  also  spoke  as  with  indifference  —  not 
looking  at  him,  but  into  the  mirror,  and  giving  deft 
final  touches  to  her  hair. 

"Eh—  ?"  Kennaston  smiled.  "  Oh,  yes, 
Dick  Harrowby,  I  grant  you,  has  dabbled  a  bit  in 
occult  matters,  but  hardly  deep  enough,  I  fancy,  to 
explain  —  this." 

"  At  all  events,"  Kathleen  considered,  "  it  is  a 
quarter  to  seven  already,  and  we  have  seats  for  the 
theater  to-night." 

He  cleared  his  throat.  "  Shall  I  keep  this,  or 
you?" 

"  Why,  for  heaven's  sake — !  The  thing  is  of 
no  value  now,  Felix.  Give  it  to  me."  She 
dropped  the  two  pieces  of  metal  into  the  waste- 
basket  by  the  dressing-table,  and  rose  impatiently. 
"  Of  course  if  you  don't  mean  to  change  for 
dinner  — " 
260 


ONE       WAY       OF       ELUSION 

He  shrugged  and  gave  it  up. 


So  they  dined  alone  together,  sharing  a  taciturn 
meal,  and  duly  witnessed  the  drolleries  of  The 
Gutta-Percha  Girl.  Kennaston's  sleep  afterward 
was  sound  and  dreamless. 


261 


IV 

Past  Storisende  Fares  the 
Road  of  Use  and  Wont 

HE  read  The  Tinctured  Veil  in  print,  with 
curious  wistful  wonder.     "  How  did  I 
come  to  write  it?  "  was  his  thought. 
Thereafter    Felix    Kennaston,    as    the    world 
knows,  wrote  no  more  books,  save  to  collect  his 
later  verses  into  a  volume.     "  I  am  afraid  to  write 
against  the  author  of  The  Tinctured  Veil"  he  was 
wont  flippantly  to  declare.     And  a  few  of  us  sus- 
pected even  then  that  he  spoke  the  absolute  truth. 


Meanwhile,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Kennaston  continued 
their  round  of  decorous  social  duties:  their  dinner- 
parties were  chronicled  in  the  Lichfield  Courier- 
Herald;  and  Kennaston  delivered,  by  request,  two 
scholarly  addresses  before  the  Lichfield  Woman's 
Club,  was  duly  brought  forward  to  shake  hands 
with  all  celebrities  who  visited  the  city,  and  served 
acceptably  in  the  vestry  of  his  church. 
262 


THE     ROAD     OF     USE     AND     WONT 

Was  Felix  Kennaston  content?  —  that  is  a  ques- 
tion he  alone  could  have  answered. 

"  But  why  shouldn't  I  have  been?  "  he  said,  a 
little  later,  in  reply  to  the  pointblank  query.  "  I 
had  a  handsome  home,  two  motors,  money  in  four 
banks,  and  a  good-looking  wife  who  loved  and 
coddled  me.  The  third  prince  gets  no  more  at  the 
end  of  any  fairy  tale.  Still,  the  old  woman  spoke 
the  truth,  of  course  —  one  pays  as  one  goes 
out.  .  .  .  Oh,  yes,  one  pays !  —  that  is  an  inevit- 
able rule;  but  what  you  have  to  pay  is  not  ex- 
orbitant, all  things  considered.  .  .  .  So,  be  off 
with  your  crude  pessimisms,  Harrowby!  " 


And  indeed,  when  one  comes  to  think,  he  was 
in  no  worse  case  than  any  other  husband  of  his 
standing.  "  Who  wins  his  love  must  lose  her," 
as  no  less  tunefully  than  wisely  sings  one  of  our 
poets  —  a  married  bard,  you  may  be  sure  —  and 
all  experience  tends  to  prove  his  warbling  perfectly 
veracious.  Romancers,  from  Time's  nonage, 
have  invented  and  have  manipulated  a  host  of 
staple  severances  for  their  puppet  lovers  —  sedu- 
lously juggling,  ever  since  Menander's  heyday, 

263 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

with  compromising  letters  and  unscrupulous  rivals 
and  shipwrecks  and  wills  and  testy  parents  and 
what  not  —  and  have  contrived  to  show  love  over- 
riding these  barriers  plausibly  enough.  But  he 
must  truly  be  a  boldfaced  rhapsodist  who  dared  at 
outset  marry  his  puppets,  to  each  other,  and  tell 
you  how  their  love  remained  unchanged. 

I  am  thus  digressing,  in  obsolete  Thackerayan 
fashion,  to  twaddle  about  love-matches  alone. 
People  marry  through  a  variety  of  other  reasons, 
and  with  varying  results:  but  to  marry  for  love  is 
to  invite  inevitable  tragedy.  There  needs  no  side- 
glancing  here  at  such  crass  bankruptcies  of  affec- 
tion as  end  in  homicide  or  divorce  proceedings,  or 
even  just  in  daily  squabbling :  these  dramas  are  of 
the  body.  They  may  be  taken  as  the  sardonic 
comedies,  or  at  their  most  outrageous  as  the  blus- 
tering cheap  melodramas,  of  existence;  and  so  lie 
beyond  the  tragic  field.  For  your  true  right 
tragedy  is  enacted  on  the  stage  of  a  man's  soul, 
with  the  man's  reason  as  lone  auditor. 

And  being  happily  married  —  but  how  shall  I 
word  it?  Let  us  step  into  the  very  darkest  corner. 
Now,  my  dear  Mr.  Grundy,  your  wife  is  a  credit 
264 


THE     ROAD     OF     USE     AND     WONT 

to  her  sex,  an  ornament  to  her  circle,  and  the  main- 
stay of  your  home;  and  you,  sir,  are  proverbially 
the  most  complacent  and  uxorious  of  spouses. 
But  you  are  not,  after  all,  married  to  the  girl  you 
met  at  the  chancel-rail,  so  long  and  long  ago,  with 
unforgotten  tremblings  of  the  knees.  Your  wife, 
that  estimable  matron,  is  quite  another  person. 
And  you  live  in  the  same  house,  and  you  very  often 
see  her  with  hair  uncombed,  or  even  with  a  di- 
sheveled temper;  you  are  familiar  with  her  hours 
of  bathing,  her  visits  to  the  dentist,  and  a  host  of 
other  physical  phenomena  we  need  not  go  into; 
she  does  not  appreciate  your  jokes;  she  peeps  into 
your  personal  correspondence;  she^keeps  the  top 
bureau-drawer  in  a  jumble  of  veils  and  gloves  and 
powder-rags  and  hair-pins  and  heaven  knows 
what;  her  gowns  continually  require  to  be  buttoned 
up  the  back  in  an  insane  incalculable  fashion;  she 
irrationally  orders  herring  for  breakfast,  though 
you  never  touch  it :  —  and  in  fine,  your  catalogue 
of  disillusionments  is  endless. 

Hand  upon  heart,  my  dear  Mr.  Grundy,  is  this 
the  person  to  whom  you  despatched  those  letters 
you  wrote  before  you  were  married?  Your  wife 

265 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

has  those  epistles  safely  put  away  somewhere,  you 
may  depend  on  it:  and  for  what  earthly  considera- 
tion would  you  read  them  aloud  to  her?  Some 
day,  when  one  or  the  other  of  you  is  dead,  those 
letters  will  ring  true  again  and  rouse  a  noble 
sorrow;  and  the  survivor  will  be  all  the  better  for 
reading  them.  But  now  they  only  prove  you  were 
once  free  of  uplands  which  you  do  not  visit  now- 
adays: and  that  common  knowledge  is  a  secret 
every  wife  must  share  half-guiltily  with  her  hus- 
band —  even  in  your  happiest  matrimonial  ven- 
tures —  as  certainly  as  it  is  the  one  topic  they  may 
not  ever  discuss  with  profit. 

For  you  are  married,  you  and  she :  and  you  live, 
contentedly  enough,  in  a  four-square  world,  where 
there  is  the  rent  and  your  social  obligations  and 
the  children's  underclothing  to  be  considered,  long 
and  long  before  indulgence  in  rattle-pate  mountain- 
climbing.  And  people  glibly  think  of  you  as  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Grundy  now,  almost  as  a  unit :  but  do  you 
really  know  very  much  about  that  woman  whose 
gentle  breathing  —  for  we  will  not  crudely  call  it 
snoring  —  you  can  always  hear  at  will  o'  nights? 
266 


THE     ROAD     OF     USE     AND     WONT 

Suppose,  by  a  wild  flight  of  fancy,  that  she  is  no 
more  honest  with  you  than  you  are  with  her? 


So  to  Kennaston  his  wife  remained  a  not  un- 
friendly mystery.  They  had  been  as  demi-gods 
for  a  little  while;  and  the  dream  had  faded,  to 
leave  it  matters  not  what  memories ;  and  they  were 
only  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Felix  Kennaston.  Concern- 
ing all  of  us,  my  fellow  failures  in  the  great  and 
hopeless  adventure  of  matrimony,  this  apologue 
is  narrated. 

Yet,  as  I  look  into  my  own  wife's  face  —  no 
more  the  loveliest,  but  still  the  dearest  of  all 
earthly  faces,  I  protest  —  and  as  I  wonder  how 
much  she  really  knows  about  me  or  the  universe  at 
large,  and  have  not  the  least  notion  —  why,  I  elect 
to  believe  that,  in  the  ultimate,  Kennaston  was  not 
dissatisfied.  For  all  of  us  the  dream-haze  merges 
into  the  glare  of  common  day;  the  dea  certe,  whom 
that  fled  roseate  light  transfigured,  stands  con- 
fessed a  simple  loving  woman,  a  creature  of  like 
flesh  and  limitations  as  our  own:  but  who  are  we 
to  mate  with  goddesses?  It  is  enough  that  much 

267 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

in  us  which  is  not  merely  human  has  for  once  found 
exercise  —  has  had  its  high-pitched  outing,  how- 
ever fleet  —  and  that,  because  of  many  abiding 
memories,  we  know,  assuredly,  the  way  of  flesh  is 
not  a  futile  scurrying  through  dining-rooms  and 
offices  and  shops  and  parlors,  and  thronged  streets 
and  restaurants,  "  and  so  to  bed." 


268 


Which  Mr.  Flaherty  Does 
Not  Quite  Explain 


WITH  the  preceding  preachment  I  wish  I 
might  end  the  story.     For  what  fol- 
lows —  which  is  my  own  little  part  in 
the  story  of  Felix  Kennaston  —  is  that  discom- 
fortable  sort  of  anticlimax  wherein  the  key  to  a 
mystery,    by    unlocking    unsuspected    doors,    dis- 
closes only  another  equally  perplexing  riddle. 

Kathleen  Kennaston  died  in  her  sleep  some 
eleven  months  after  her  husband  discovered  the 
missing  half  of  the  sigil.  .  .  . 

"  I  have  a  sort  of  headache,"  she  said,  toward 
nine  o'clock  in  the  evening.  "  I  believe  I  will  go 
to  bed,  Felix."  So  she  kissed  him  goodnight,  in 
just  that  emotionless  preoccupied  fashion  that 
years  of  living  together  had  made  familiar;  and  so 
she  left  him  in  the  music-room,  to  smoke  and  read 
magazines.  He  never  saw  her  living  any  more. 
Kathleen  stopped  in  the  hall,  to  wind  the  clock. 

269 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

"  Don't  forget  to  lock  the  front  door  when  you 
come  up,  Felix."  She  was  out  of  sight,  but  he 
could  hear  her,  as  well  as  the  turning  of  the  clock 
key.  "  I  forgot  to  tell  you  I  saw  Adele  Van 
Orden  to-day,  at  Greenberg's.  They  are  going 
down  to  the  Beach  Thursday.  She  told  me  they 
haven't  had  a  cook  for  three  days  now,  and  she 
and  old  Mrs.  Haggage  have  had  to  do  all  the 
work.  She  looked  it,  too  —  I  never  saw  any  one 
let  themselves  go  all  to  pieces  the  way  she  has  — " 

"  How — ?  Oh,  yes,"  he  mumbled,  intent 
upon  his  reading;  "  it  is  pretty  bad.  Don't  many 
of  them  keep  their  looks  as  you  do,  dear —  " 

And  that  was  all.  He  never  heard  his  wife's 
voice  any  more.  Kennaston  read  contentedly  for 
a  couple  of  hours,  and  went  to  bed.  It  was  in  the 
morning  the  maid  found  Mrs.  Kennaston  dead 
and  cold.  She  had  died  in  her  sleep,  quite  peace- 
fully, after  taking  two  headache  powders,  while 
her  husband  was  contentedly  pursuing  the  thread 
of  a  magazine  story  through  the  advertising 
columns.  .  .  . 

Kennaston  had  never  spoken  to  her  concerning 
the  sigil.  Indeed,  I  do  not  well  see  how  he  could 
270 


MR.    FLAHERTY   DOES    NOT   EXPLAIN 

have  dared  to  do  so,  in  view  of  her  attitude  in  a 
world  so  opulent  in  insane  asylums.  But  among 
her  effects,  hidden  away  as  before  in  the  press  in 
her  bathroom,  Kennaston  found  both  the  pieces  of 
metal.  They  were  joined  together  now,  forming 
a  perfect  circle,  but  with  the  line  of  their  former 
separation  yet  visible. 

He  showed  me  the  sigil  of  Scoteia,  having  told 
this  tale.  .  .  . 

I  had  thought  from  the  first  there  would  prove 
to  be  supernal  double-dealing  back  of  all  this. 
The  Wardens  of  Earth  sometimes  unbar  strange 
windows,  I  suspect  —  windows  which  face  on 
other  worlds  than  ours ;  and  They  permit  this-or- 
that  man  to  peer  out  fleetingly,  perhaps,  just  for 
the  joke's  sake;  since  always  They  humorously 
contrive  matters  so  this  man  shall  never  be  able  to 
convince  his  fellows  of  what  he  has  seen,  or  of 
the  fact  that  he  was  granted  any  peep  at  all.  The 
Wardens  without  fail  arrange  what  we  call — 
gravely,  too  — "  some  natural  explanation." 

Kennaston  showed  me  the  sigil  of  Scoteia,  hav- 
ing told  this  tale.  .  .  . 

271 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

*  You  are  interested  in  such  things,  you  see  — 
just  as  Kathleen  said.  And  I  have  sometimes 
wondered  if  when  she  said,  *  Perhaps  Mr.  Har- 
rowby  could  tell  you,'  the  words  did  not  mean 
more  than  they  seemed  then  to  mean  — ?  " 

I  was  interested  now,  very  certainly.  But  I 
knew  that  Kathleen  Kennaston  had  referred  not 
at  all  to  my  interest  in  certain  of  the  less  known 
sides  of  existence,  which  people  loosely  describe 
as  u  occult." 

And  slowly,  I  comprehended  that  for  the  thou- 
sandth time  the  Wardens  of  Earth  were  uncom- 
promised;  that  here  too  They  stayed  unconvicted 
of  negligence  in  Their  duty:  for  here  was  at  hand 
the  "  natural  explanation."  Kennaston's  was  one 
of  those  curious,  but  not  uncommon,  cases  of  self- 
hypnosis,  such  as  Fehlig  and  Alexis  Bidoche  have 
investigated  and  described.  Kennaston's  first 
dream  of  Ettarre  had  been  an  ordinary  normal 
dream,  in  no  way  particularly  remarkable;  and  aft- 
erward, his  will  to  dream  again  of  Ettarre,  co- 
operating with  his  queer  reading,  his  tempera- 
ment, his  idle  life,  his  belief  in  the  sigil,  and  co- 
operating too  —  as  yet  men  may  not  say  just  how 
272 


MR.    FLAHERTY   DOES    NOT   EXPLAIN 

—  with  the  hypnotic  effects  of  any  trivial  bright 
object  when  gazed  at  steadily,  had  been  sufficient 
to  induce  more  dreams.  I  could  understand  how 
it  had  all  befallen  in  consonance  with  hackneyed 
laws,  insane  as  was  the  outcome. 

And  the  prelate  and  the  personage  had  referred, 
of  course,  to  the  then-notorious  nineteenth  and 
twentieth  chapters  of  Men  Who  Loved  Alison,  in 
which  is  described  the  worship  of  the  sigil  of 
Scoteia  —  and  which  chapters  they,  in  common 
with  a  great  many  other  people,  considered  unnec- 
essarily to  defile  a  noble  book.  The  coincidence 
of  the  mirrors  was  quaint,  but  in  itself  came  to 
less  than  nothing;  for  as  touches  the  two  questions 
as  to  white  pigeons,  the  proverb  alluded  to  by  the 
personage,  concerning  the  bird  that  fouls  its  own 
nest,  is  fairly  familiar,  and  the  prelate's  speech  was 
the  most  natural  of  prosaic  inquiries.  What  these 
two  men  had  said  and  done,  in  fine,  amounted 
to  absolutely  nothing  until  transfigured  in  the 
crucible  of  an  ardent  imagination,  by  the  curious 
literary  notion  that  human  life  as  people  spend  it 
is  purposeful  and  clearly  motived. 

For  what  Kennaston  showed  me  was  the  metal 

273 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

top  of  a  cold  cream  jar.  I  am  sure  of  this,  for 
Harrowby's  Creme  Cleopatre  is  one  of  the  most 
popular  articles  our  firm  manufactures.  I  hesitate 
to  tell  you  how  many  thousand  husbands  may  find 
at  will  among  their  wives'  possessions  just  such  a 
talisman  as  Kennaston  had  discovered.  I  myself 
selected  the  design  for  these  covers  when  the  stuff 
was  first  put  in  the  market.  They  are  sealed  on, 
you  may  remember,  with  gray  wax,  to  carry  out 
the  general  idea  that  we  are  vending  old  Egyptian 
secrets  of  beauty.  And  the  design  upon  these 
covers,  as  I  have  since  been  at  pains  to  make  sure, 
is  in  no  known  alphabet.  P.  N.  Flaherty  (the 
artist  implicated)  tells  me  he  "just  made  it  up 
out  of  his  head  " —  blending  meaningless  curlicues 
and  dots  and  circles  with  an  irresponsible  hand, 
and  sketching  a  crack  across  all,  "  just  to  make  it 
look  ancient  like."  It  was  along  this  semblance 
of  a  fracture  —  for  there  the  brittle  metal  is  thin- 
nest —  that  the  cover  first  picked  up  by  Kennaston 
had  been  broken.  The  cover  he  showed  me  was, 
of  course,  complete.  ...  So  much  for  Mr. 
Flaherty's  part  in  the  matter;  and  of  hieroglyphic 
lore,  or  any  acquaintance  with  heathenry  beyond 
274 


MR.    FLAHERTY   DOES    NOT   EXPLAIN 

his  gleanings  from  the  moving  pictures,  I  would  be 
the  last  person  to  suspect  him. 

It  was  natural  that  Mrs.  Kennaston  should  have 
used  Harrowby's  Creme  Cleopatre  habitually;  for 
indeed,  as  my  wife  had  often  pointed  out,  Mrs. 
Kennaston  used  a  considerable  amount  of  toilet 
preparations.  And  that  Mrs.  Allardyce  should 
have  had  a  jar  of  Harrowby's  Creme  Cleopatre 
in  her  handbag  was  almost  inevitable :  there  is  no 
better  restorative  and  cleanser  for  the  complexion, 
after  the  dust  and  dirt  of  a  train-journey,  as  is 
unanimously  acknowledged  by  Harrowby  &  Sons' 
advertisements. 

But  there  is  the  faith  that  moves  mountains,  as 
we  glibly  acknowledge  with  unconcernment  as  to 
the  statement's  tremendous  truth;  and  Felix  Ken- 
naston had  believed  in  his  talisman  implicitly  from 
the  very  first.  Thus,  through  his  faith,  and 
through  we  know  not  what  soul-hunger,  so  many 
long  hours,  and  —  here  is  the  sardonic  point  —  so 
many  contented  and  artistically-fruitful  hours  of 
Kennaston's  life  in  the  flesh  had  been  devoted  to 
contemplation  of  a  mirage.  It  was  no  cause  for 
astonishment  that  he  had  more  than  once  surprised 

275 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

compassion  and  wonder  in  his  wife's  eyes :  indeed, 
she  could  hardly  have  failed  to  suspect  his  mind 
was  affected;  but,  loving  him,  she  had  tried  to 
shield  him,  as  is  the  way  of  women.  ...  I  found 
the  whole  matter  droll  and  rather  heart-breaking. 
But  the  Wardens  of  Earth  were  uncompromised, 
so  far  as  I  could  prove.  Whatever  windows  had 
or  had  not  been  unbarred,  there  remained  no 
proof.  .  .  . 


So  I  shook  my  head.  "  Why,  no,"  said  I,  with 
at  worst  a  verbal  adhesion  to  veracity.  "  I,  for 
one,  do  not  know  what  the  design  means.  Still, 
you  have  never  had  this  deciphered,"  I  added, 
gently.  "  Suppose  —  suppose  there  had  been 
some  mistake,  Mr.  Kennaston  —  that  there  was 
nothing  miraculous  about  the  sigil,  after  all — ?  " 

I  cannot  tell  you  of  his  expression;  but  it  caused 
me  for  the  moment  to  feel  disconcertingly  little 
and  obtuse. 

"  Now,  how  can  you  say  that,  I  wonder!  "  he 
marveled  —  and  then,  of  course,  he  fidgeted,  and 
crossed  his  legs  the  other  way — "when  I  have 
been  telling  you,  from  alpha  to  omega,  what  is  the 
276 


MR.    FLAHERTY   DOES    NOT    EXPLAIN 

one  great  thing  the  sigil  taught  me  —  that  every- 
thing in  life  is  miraculous.  For  the  sigil  taught 
me  that  it  rests  within  the  power  of  each  of  us 
to  awaken  at  will  from  a  dragging  nightmare  of 
life  made  up  of  unimportant  tasks  and  tedious  use- 
less little  habits,  to  see  life  as  it  really  is,  and  to 
rejoice  in  its  exquisite  wonderfulness.  If  the  sigil 
were  proved  to  be  the  top  of  a  tomato-can,  it  would 
not  alter  that  big  fact,  nor  my  fixed  faith.  No, 
Harrowby,  the  common  names  we  call  things  by 
do  not  matter  —  except  to  show  how  very  dull  we 
are,"  he  ended,  with  that  irritating  little  noise  that 
was  nearly  a  snigger,  and  just  missed  being  a 
cough. 

And  I  was  sorely  tempted.  .  .  .  You  see,  I 
never  liked  Felix  Kennaston.  The  man  could  cre- 
ate beauty,  to  outlive  him ;  but  in  his  own  appear- 
ance he  combined  grossness  with  insignificance,  and 
he  added  thereto  a  variety  of  ugly  senseless  little 
mannerisms.  He  could  evolve  interesting  ideas, 
as  to  Omnipotence,  the  universe,  art,  life,  religion, 
himself,  his  wife,  a  candlestick  or  a  comet  —  any- 
thing —  and  very  probably  as  to  me ;  but  his 
preferences  and  his  limitations  would  conform  and 

277 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

color  all  these  ideas  until  they  were  precisely  what 
he  desired  to  believe,  no  more  or  less;  and,  having 
them,  he  lacked  means,  or  courage,  to  voice  his 
ideas  adequately,  so  that  to  talk  with  him  meant 
a  dull  interchange  of  commonplaces.  Again,  he 
could  aspire  toward  chivalric  love,  that  passion 
which  sees  in  womankind  High  God  made  mani- 
fest in  the  loveliest  and  most  perfect  of  His  crea- 
tions; but  in  the  quest  he  had  succeeded  merely  in 
utilizing  womenfolk  either  as  toys  to  play  with  and 
put  by  or  as  drudges  to  wait  on  him ;  yet,  with  all 
this,  he  could  retain  unshaken  his  faith  in  and  his 
worship  of  that  ideal  woman.  He  could  face  no 
decision  without  dodging;  no  temptation  without 
compromise;  and  he  lied,  as  if  by  instinct,  at  the 
threatened  approach  of  discomfort  or  of  his  fel- 
lows' disapproval:  yet  devils,  men  and  seraphim 
would  conspire  in  vain  in  any  effort  to  dissuade  him 
from  his  self-elected  purpose.  For,  though  he 
would  do  no  useful  labor  he  could  possibly  avoid, 
he  could  grudge  nothing  to  the  perfection  of  his 
chosen  art,  in  striving  to  perpetuate  the  best  as  he 
saw  it. 

In  short,  to  me  this  man  seemed  an  inadequate 

278 


MR.    FLAHERTY    DOES    NOT   EXPLAIN 

kickworthy  creature,  who  had  muddled  away  the 
only  life  he  was  quite  certain  of  enjoying,  in  con- 
templation of  a  dream;  and  who  had,  moreover, 
despoiled  the  lives  of  others,  too,  for  the  dream's 
sake.  To  him  the  dream  alone  could  matter  — 
his  proud  assurance  that  life  was  not  a  blind  and 
aimless  business,  not  all  a  hopeless  waste  and  con- 
fusion; and  that  he,  this  gross  weak  animal,  could 
be  strong  and  excellent  and  wise,  and  his  existence 
a  pageant  of  beauty  and  nobility.  To  prove  this 
dream  was  based  on  a  delusion  would  be  no  doubt 
an  enjoyable  retaliation,  for  Kennaston's  being  so 
unengaging  to  the  eye  and  so  stupid  to  talk  to; 
but  it  would  make  the  dream  no  whit  less  lovely  or 
less  dear  to  him  —  or  to  the  rest  of  us,  either. 

For  it  occurred  to  me  that  his  history  was,  in 
essentials,  the  history  of  our  race,  thus  far.  All 
I  advanced  for  or  against  him,  equally,  was  true 
of  all  men  that  have  ever  lived.  .  .  .  For  it  is  in 
this  inadequate  flesh  that  each  of  us  must  serve  his 
dream;  and  so,  must  fail  in  the  dream's  service, 
and  must  parody  that  which  he  holds  dearest.  To 
this  we  seem  condemned,  being  what  we  are. 
Thus,  one  and  all,  we  play  false  to  the  dream,  and 

279 


THE      CREAM      OF      THE      JEST 

it  evades  us,  and  we  dwindle  into  responsible  citi- 
zens. And  yet  always  thereafter  —  because  of 
many  abiding  memories  —  we  know,  assuredly, 
that  the  way  of  flesh  is  not  a  futile  scurrying 
through  dining-rooms  and  offices  and  shops  and 
parlors,  and  thronged  streets  and  restaurants, 
"  and  so  to  bed."  .  .  . 

It  was  in  appropriate  silence,  therefore,  that  I 
regarded  Felix  Kennaston,  as  a  parable.  The 
man  was  not  merely  very  human;  he  was  humanity. 
And  I  reflected  that  it  is  only  by  preserving  faith  in 
human  dreams  that  we  may,  after  all,  perhaps 
some  day  make  them  come  true. 


THE    END 


VAIL-BALLOU  CO.,    BINGHAMTON   AND   NEW  YORK 
280 


THE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  SANTA  CRUZ 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  DATE  stamped  below. 


NOV8    IS67 

NOV  5.    1S69 
DDT  2  9  RED 


MAY  I 

APR£71990REC'0 


lOOm-8,'65  (F6282s8)2373 


TORED  AT  NRLF 


PS3505.A153C7 


3  2106  00209  3935 


